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UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


BY THE SAME AUTHOR: 

ECONOMICS AND POLITICS 

Engines of Social Progress. 

France in the Twentieth Cen- 
tury. 

Labour and Housing at Port 
Sunlight. 

NOVELS 

A Bed of Roses. 

The City of Light : A Story of 
Modern Paris. 

Until the Day Break. 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


BY 

W. L. GEORGE 

n 


** Until the day break, and the shadows flee away,** 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
1913 



Copyright, 1913 

By DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 
Puhlishedy Januartfy 1913 




CU330766 



CONTENTS 

PART I 

BUD UNFOLDING 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I LOCKS OP RED COPPER 1 

H TISZTA MAGYAR AM I 9 

III A GR-RAND COUNTRY 47 

IV AUGUSTA 84 

PART II 

LONDON TOWN 

I IMPAR CONGRESSUS ACHILLI 127 

II A KNIGHT FROM BRONDESBURY 157 

PART III 

KARSAVINA 

I THE WOMAN BY THE CANAL 195 

II LOVE FORGES LINKS 215 

III UNION BY DIVISION 238 

IV THE CAUSE AND THE MARTYR 260 

PART IV 

THE BOMB 

I CAMBRIDGE BROADENS ITS VIEWS 287 

H THE RANKS CLOSE UP 308 

HI THE BOMB . 337 



PART I 


BUD UNFOLDING 


« 


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CHAPTER I 


LOCKS OF BED COPPER 

Cracow 1 

As if some ancient God had flown south from the ice 
towards the sun, and passing from the plains where the 
Vistula flows to the Adriatic, had suddenly beheld 
before him the crest of Tatra and its vassal mounts 
staring into the heavens ; as if then in weariness the 
God, feeling his strength desert him, his pinions beat 
slower, had let fall a tumbled mass of hovels and of 
castles, of churches and battlements destined to build 
cities where the Egean swells or where blisters the sun 
of Tripoli, so lies Cracow, the fortuitous work of his 
giant hand, by the side of the lazy Vistula, under the 
shadow of the great green hill. Upon Cracow plays 
the pale sunlight of Poland, white as if coloured 
by dead snows, and wistful as if saddened by forgotten 
liberties ; it cannot be gay, this Polish sun, for 
gaiety would outrage the anonymous land the three 
empires have eaten. 

In the street under the great green hill walks the 
conquered race, less careless than indifferent, as if 
conscious of subjection and inured to it by custom. 
It goes about little affairs of the day in its chaotic 
city of mediaeval lanes, through dirt and beauty, 
towards the modern quarters far from the Wawel, the 
green hill now symbolic. Upon the Wawel stand the 
double-towered cathedral, where a few Poles worship 
because their fathers worshipped, the castle whose 
face they avoid. For in the castle, instead of 
Sobieski’s men, are the alien soldiers, the Australians 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


whose shrill fanfares proclaim every hour of their 
occupation, affirm their activity and capacity to the 
conquered race which walks below under the wings of 
the double-headed eagle. They pass, the Poles, be- 
tween the great cedars, by the side of the little white 
houses of their people, little white houses with small 
windows, green shutters, gardens in each of which 
grows a pear tree that nestles against the wall. Every 
dozen houses gives room to one hardly more ornate 
than its fellows, but a trifle larger, a tavern rigidly 
shuttered below, open above, and revealing some list- 
less men who revel ill, even though there be among them 
singing and dancing of which the sound gently beats 
against the cedars. They appear at the windows, 
look out moodily upon the street, smoking very slowly 
their cigarettes with the cardboard stems ; among 
them, at times, appears a smiling girl clothed in vivid 
colours, with braided dark hair, whose slim, dusky 
hand mutely tenders to those who sing and dance 
within a plate for minute copper offerings. 

And so the wistful wind blows. There is repression 
and danger in the air, though there be no longer the 
bracing spirit of revolt; there is the visible policeman 
with his massive, prussianised helmet and his heavy 
sword, the invisible official who may lurk anywhere and 
hear. It is little he hears now, for the Polish body 
writhes no more under the Austrian heel. 

It was afternoon. Between two great cedar trees, 
in front of a small shuttered tavern, a group had 
formed round two figures. They had chosen the spot 
with intention, for no music issued from the tavern ; 
at its windows appeared half-a-dozen dark heads that 
idly watched the spectacle. It was not an impressive 
picture. By the side of the small boy who fiddled 


BUD UNFOLDING 


dully as if he had been wound up, stood an old man, a 
Jew, whose fine dark eyes roved ceaselessly towards the 
listeners, marking their worth and waiting for the 
moment when he should go the round of them and beg 
for alms ; he seemed, this restless old Jew, like a bird 
of prey, so intense was the glow of his eye, and yet 
there was about him the ridiculous air which clings 
to his Polish fellows: upon his heavy black and grey 
curls, which framed his olive face with glossy waves, 
sat his top hat, unbrushed and dull, as dull as the 
immense black coat which covered him to the ankles 
and almost hid his pegtop check trousers. The old 
man showed no linen, having closed tight about his 
dirty brown neck his filthy sheepskin vest. And cease- 
lessly his eyes roved, while the listeners, who were now 
growing more, gathered round the little boy. 

The little boy played on with downcast eyes, the 
violin held to his shoulder by a plump white hand 
spattered with freckles ; he played with ease, with in- 
difference, as if the intricate fingering were mechani- 
cal; his arm loosely and securely drew the bow across 
the strings. He appeared as a stout little figure with 
round shoulders and large hips, clad, much as the old 
man, in a black coat lined with ragged sheepskin, 
trousers inherited from some senior and maladroitly 
reduced, black shoes over which fell his dirty white 
socks. Upon his head was a flat black cap without a 
peak, small, absurd, inadequate, but a cap unseen as 
a fishing smack is unseen on a deep roiling sea: one 
could not look at the small boy’s cap when one had 
seen his hair, his great curly red mane which burst 
everywhere from under the cap in copper strands, hung 
about his ears like drapery, licked torch-like about his 
white forehead. He played, this little glory-crowned 


4 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


Jew boy with the head haloed in flame, careless of 
listeners and of money, as if uncharmed and undaunted 
by his task. From under his fingers came, and so 
strangely, not a rhapsody or a csarda, but a fragment 
from Carmen. 

As the notes came tripping from the strings, all im- 
petuosity and delight, the Poles drew nearer as if 
charmed a little. The men, small, dark and lithe, lis- 
tened without a smile while they twisted their little 
black moustaches; the airy music drew no gaiety into 
their eyes that were deep as water. With them were 
their women, whose black shawls tightly framed their 
plump white faces, their fine glowing eyes ; these lis- 
tened with some excitement in their languor, clasped 
nervously their short, fat hands upon their embroid- 
ered aprons. 

“ Poor little man,” said the soft voice of a Polish 
woman. The old Jew turned towards her with a flash 
in his eyes as he marked her for a small piece of silver, 
but hesitated to set about collecting, for as he moved 
he observed a wavering in the group and knew that his 
audience was not yet ready, that the threat of a col- 
lection would disperse it. He leant over the boy, 
whispered into his ear, and as if automatically the 
vigour of the playing increased, the round shoulders 
swayed from side to side, followed the rhythm, while 
the head of flame jerked staccato up and down. 

Gaily, quickly, the boy played on, projected unseen 
Spain into the grey Slav plain. 

A Polish woman, in a black apron with red and blue 
embroidery, held out her hand to the bearded man 
beside her, and smiled from under her head-shawl when 
he gave her a copper coin. As he gave it the old man 
leapt towards her with the swiftness of a monkey, 


BUD UNFOLDING 


5 


seized the money, bowed and mumbled thanks in 
Yiddish. The little boy played on, elaborating the 
Habanera^ while the group thickened round him. The 
spirit of Cracow was about him now, not only the dark, 
slouching Poles and their plump, low-busted women, 
but the Jews, a score of these, old men much like the 
patriarch who watched over the red-haired boy, and 
young men whose long black coats fitted close into 
their thick waists, and a few Jewesses with immense, 
impassive faces, the colour of olive oil, whose great 
black eyes swam in a zone white and glittering as 
enamel. They knew the breed of the musician and 
his keeper, all of these. 

“Look at his hair,” whispered a Jewess to her hus- 
band, “ thus was mine, Jacob, you remember.” 

“ Yes, thus it was,” said the man soberly. Then he 
looked affectionately at her white face, on which ap- 
peared the characteristic freckles of the red-haired 
woman ; the green shawl which bound her head revealed 
her scheitel of parted sandy hair. “ Yes,” he repeated, 
“ thus it was, Rebecca. A pity that it should have 
been cut off when you came into my house. Yet, ’tis 
the Law.” 

“ ’Tis the Law,” said the woman softly, but there 
was a note of regret in her voice as she touched the 
sandy strands held to her head by the green shawl. 
It was the Law had cut off her hair in token of wife- 
hood, imposed upon her ugly artifice so that she might 
please no man other than her lord. She had obeyed, 
she had shorn her head of red ropes, but as she looked 
at the boy and his crown of copper, she regretted that 
it was the Law. 

The old man had left the small musician and was 
now moving round the crowd with, in his hand, a 


6 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


brown box of polished wood. He paused in front of 
those who still listened, a smile on his pendulous red 
mouth, mutely holding out the box; a few coppers re- 
warded him, were slipped through the slit in the lid. 
At times he stopped in front of a woman, whispered 
the few words of Polish he knew. 

“ For the little man,” he said gently, and the women 
did not resist. The first, who had said “Poor little 
man,” gave a small piece of silver, while the boy, as if 
conscious of the importance of the moment, threw re- 
newed vivacity into his bow ; little automaton, he 
played on, his eyes still downcast, unseeing of the 
white houses, the pale sky and the great cedars, as if 
truly he could imagine Carmen all red and yellow and 
gold — the sun, the great, blue Spanish sky. Then 
there was a swirl in the crowd behind the old man. 
The people moved aside sullenly to let the police pass, 
as if well accustomed to them and drilled to obedience. 
One big green-coated man suddenly laid a hand on the 
patriarch’s shoulder. The old Jew wheeled about, 
clasping the wooden box to his breast. 

“What are you doing here.?^” said the policeman 
fiercely. 

The old man looked at him, half truculent, half 
slavish. But even that half truculence died out as he 
met the pitiless blue eyes of the Austrian. He knew 
those fat, fair faces with the light eyes, the yellow 
moustaches ; he had felt that heavy, white-gloved hand 
in Prussia, known the fear of the long sword which 
clanked on the pavement. He could not find words ; 
he stood, abject and bowed, quite suddenly showing 
himself as a very old man whose hair would soon be 
white; all strength had gone into the dirty brown 
hands that clasped the money-box. 


BUD UNFOLDING 


7 


“ Got a permit? ” said the policeman. “ No? You 
can’t play in the streets without a permit. Come 
along.” The heavy white-gloved hand turned the old 
man about, drove him straight towards the group 
which opened in front of him. The old Jew looked 
despairingly into the faces, but found nothing in them 
save faint sympathy. What could they do, these sub- 
ject Poles? — these Jews lower than the Poles? In his 
ears rang the gay chorus of the Habanera, for the 
little boy was still playing, threading his way through 
the maze of notes as if too intent upon his task to 
trouble about a mere arrest. Vague parental feeling, 
faint revolt stirred the old Jew. 

“ Let me go, let me go,” he whined. “ Let me 
alone,” he cried more angrily, as he struggled in vain 
with the heavy hand. But the hand urged him on 
without anger. The hand was merely doing its work. 

“No nonsense,” said the hard voice. “ Ah? you 
won’t go quietly? ” There was a struggle. The 
money-box fell to the ground, was snatched up and 
stolen. The old man’s voice rose in protest ; he waved 
in the air, in Jewish fashion, his ineffectual hands. 
Then his protests suddenly became shrill squeals as 
the heavy white gloves struck him about the face, on 
the eyes, on the mouth. He cried out, he fell. A kick 
from the great high boot reached his ribs. 

“ Pig,” said the policeman. 

“ A shame ! a shame ! ” said one or two voices. 

The policeman turned towards the crowd, but it 
was again quiescent ; it sidled with the aliens, for a 
high Polish voice had suddenly cried out — 

“What matters? It’s only a Jew.” 

The crowd thinned, was dispersed by another 
policeman, while the first half-urged and half-carried 


8 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


past the cedars the old man in the dirty black coat. 
Alone, in the front of the tavern, the little boy still 
stood playing, forgotten by the authorities and the 
people. He played as if careless of life and all that 
was not hunger and stripes; he imagined love and 
golden Spain. 


CHAPTER II 


TISZTA MAGYAR AM I . . . 

I 

The little boy had finished the Habanera and now 
stood in front of the tavern, his violin under his left 
arm, his bow swinging in his right hand. The crowd, 
driven away by the police, had left him alone beside 
the cedars ; some had hurriedly gone about their busi- 
ness because the uniforms always made them uncom- 
fortable ; others had followed the human interest, 
walked behind the old man towards the police station, 
and were now watching the wall behind which some- 
thing was happening, as is the way with all crowds. 
The passers-by paid no attention to the little red- 
haired boy who stood so obviously embarrassed. But 
a woman, who had seen the rapid tragedy from the 
window of a house next the tavern, opened her green 
door and, quickly running towards the little boy, made 
as if to speak to him. 

The boy raised his head to look at her, and the pale 
sun lit up his heavy red hair. She saw, set in his milk- 
white, bran-sown skin, immense light blue eyes, eyes 
the colour of swift-running water, but his glance was 
not so embarrassed as his attitude ; it was cool, almost 
insolent, it measured and it priced ; it was the look of 
the scientist, and yet it had a dreamlike quality. The 
full red mouth smiled under the fleshy nose. 

“ Isten Hozotty^' ^ said the boy. 

The woman arched her dark eyebrows, then laughed 
broadly. 

1 “ God has brought you.” 


9 


10 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


“ You little fool,” she said good-humouredly in Ger- 
man, “ you are not in Hungary. . . .You are Ger- 
man, are you not ? ” 

“Yes, I am German. I am a Jew. I am ten years 
old. My name is Israel Kalisch. Where is Hungary ? ” 

“ Do you want to go to Hungary ? ” asked the wo- 
man, amused by this collected child. 

“ Yes. My grandfather said in Hungary we should 
make money because they like music. He said we could 
not be happy among the Prussians. The Prussians are 
schmeinehunde.*’ 

“ True,” said the woman, for she was Austrian. 
“ But the Austrians are not schweinehunde. Why do 
you not stay here? ” 

“ My grandfather said we go to Hungary. So I 
go.” 

“ But,” the woman protested, “ the police have taken 
him away; you cannot go alone.” She was genuinely 
surprised; her eyes stared. 

“ Yes,” said Israel, pursing his full red lips in per- 
plexed manner, “ it will be difficult. Still I must go. 
He said it.” There was a suggestion of loyalty in his 
phrase; the boy seemed to be under orders, compelled 
to shoulder the burden of his wandering tribe. “ I 
shall not see him again,” he said softly ; “ when the 
schweinehunde take a man they eat him. Oh, not 
really,” he added, “ but you do not see him again. 
That is the law ; still, they should not have beaten him. 
It is wrong to hurt people.” 

Oh — you saw them beating him? I thought you 
did not notice, you played all the time.” 

“ Oh yes, I heard, but what could I do? I am not 
strong enough to fight policemen now. When I grow 
up I shall be strong, and I shall kill them to frighten 


BUD UNFOLDING 11 

the others. It is wrong to hurt people, but what cari 
one do ? ” 

The two looked at each other, the puzzled Austrian 
woman, who already wondered whether she could add 
to her household of two girls and three boys this self- 
reliant little rebel; and the boy, dreamy and unruffled, 
half seer, half logician. 

“ What are you going to do ? ” she asked. 

“ I shall play the violin outside the beerhouses, and 
make money and buy a ticket to Hungary.” A curious 
expression crossed the boy’s face, made it whimsical 
and caressing. “ You would not like to buy me a 
ticket to Hungary? ” he asked. 

“ You little hengely* said the woman. “ No, but I 
will give you a sausage and a piece of brown bread if 
you wait a moment.” 

And some moments later Israel was walking away 
along the row of cedars, his violin and bow in their old 
canvas case. His mouth was full of bread and sausage 
which he ate without scruple, for poverty had been too 
much for the law, and his grandfather had let him eat 
pork ; in his pocket j ingled half a krone in nickel given 
him by the kindly Austrian, together with a kiss. He 
had thanked her gracefully for the money and accepted 
the kiss : several times before, in the course of his im- 
mense experience of ten years, had he observed this 
conjunction of circumstances. But he was not over- 
whelmed by his good fortune, for instinct told him 
that even so large a sum as fifty heller would not take 
him to Hungary ; he was therefore casting over Cracow 
a critical eye and relying upon his luck to find a pitch 
where he could profitably play Carmen undisturbed by 
the police. 

It was not wonderful that Israel Kalisch faced with 


n 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


equanimity a storm such as the loss of a grandfather. 
Ever since he could talk he bad avoided the police, 
either because his grandfather had been an unregis- 
tered money-lender, or an unlicensed hawker, or a 
thief, or, worst of all, a Jew. He had been frequently 
kicked by Christians; he had slept in stables, in out- 
houses, in the streets, occasionally in beds. Having 
neither father nor mother, he had wandered in the 
train of his dirty old grandfather, and had, by him, 
been well treated enough. The old Jew had always 
managed to feed him well and had not beaten him; 
the boy had never seen him drunk. But Israel knew 
the world, saw it as an odd kaleidoscope of accidents, 
a muddle of people with money who rode in carriages, 
officers, long-haired, odorous Polish Jews, policemen, 
all of them waging against one another an aimless war. 
He considered enmity unfortunate and yet normal : 
that which he could not understand he accepted. Was 
he not of the East.? And now, with unerring instinct, 
with a tribal ideal before him, he was left in a foreign 
city to earn a living and make for a gentler coun- 
try, gentler because it lay further south and further 
east. 

He never saw old Kalisch again. Truly the gaol of 
the schweinehunde ate him, as gaols have a way of doing 
with disreputable old men. Presumably he died of 
the mixture of age, dirt and vermin which serve his 
kind as a disease. It cannot be said that Israel tried 
to find him ; it was enough for him that the old man 
had gone: he thought, if he did not pronounce, the 
word ‘‘ kismet.” Besides, he knew very well that en- 
quiries would invite attention from the uniforms, and 
all uniforms had to be avoided; he knew those uni- 
forms, blue, green or black, all evil things, things that 


BUD UNFOLDING 


13 


locked boys up, washed them, cut their hair, beat them 
and taught them to read. He reflected that he would 
not mind learning to read, for he had seen picture- 
books in shops and would have liked to know what 
they were about. But he was resolved to learn in 
freedom, to be free, to go to Hungary where his grand- 
father said a Jew could be happy. 

Israel was not fated to remain very long in Cracow ; 
his faith in Hungary was too strong; it was a land of 
Canaan unrolling towards the limitless south from the 
peak of Tatra. He believed Hungary to be his goal 
and, because he believed, he must attain it. It was not 
that Cracow was hard to him ; the dour town tended 
to smile upon the white-skinned, copper-crowned boy, 
to listen when he played the violin outside and, by 
favour of fat, kindly Austrians, inside beerhouses ; 
Cracow patted his head, gave him bronze two-heller 
pieces and sometimes princely nickels. The terrible 
white-gloved police seemed to overlook the little figurej 
to let it play short pieces of its own composing even on 
the august Ring Platz ; once only did Israel find himself 
outlawed for having criminally begged from an Eng- 
lishman in the Pijarskastrasse. That was a splendid, 
moving chase through small alleys filled with rotting 
vegetables, where dogs scavenged as peacefully as they 
might have done in Stamboul, through narrow old 
streets where the wooden houses almost met. At last 
Israel, breathless and triumphant, finding a house with 
a small garden, burst through the side door, closed it 
behind him, and gleefully heard the heavy top boots 
hurtle past and go astray. 

He looked around the garden, all rough grass and 
fruit-laden apple trees; near the house, which was of 
grey stone, stood among the grass a rotting wooden 


14 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


bench. Upon this neglect the sun fell slanting and 
faint. Israel debated whether he should fill his pockets 
with apples and escape; when, suddenly, the old oak 
door creaked and opened. Before he could run to the 
side door an elderly woman stood between him and 
liberty. She looked at the trespasser rather fiercely 
with fine black eyes set in a brown, thin face ; her high 
nose wrinkled as she looked at him. The whole effect 
of her, her silver-crowned head tied in a multicoloured 
handkerchief, the black shawl spread over her shoul- 
ders, the narrow skirt with the vertical red and blue 
stripes, was that of a big, gorgeous bird. 

She did not look unkind as she examined the lily- 
white, red-headed cherub. Israel felt the friendliness 
and, with unconscious craft, removed from his red 
mane his old black cap. 

“ Give me shelter, gnddige FraUy I . . . ” 

“ Gnddige Frau! ” the woman shouted. “ How dare 
you.'’ Do you take me for a German? ” Her black 
eyes were glowing with anger, as she used the hated 
language. “ Still . . . how can you know. . . . 
Little boy, I am Tiszta Magyar, Do you know what 
that is? ” 

“No . . .” faltered Israel, opening wide his light- 
blue eyes. 

“ I am Hungarian.” 

“ Hungarian ! ” cried Israel. “ Oh, what luck. 
Isten Hozottl ” 

The woman gasped, made as if to stretch out her 
hands, but hesitated. Obviously the boy was a Jew. 
... A German, too. . . . Her sympathies wav- 
ered; there was in her all the hungry conflict of 
nationality that tortures the subjects of Francis 
Joseph. She was as ready to love a Magyar boy as to 


BUD UNFOLDING 


15 


spit upon an Austrian, a Jew, a German, as to treat 
with cold courtesy a Pole, a Croatian or a Ruthenian, 
to condescend to a Slovak, to flee from an Olah. All 
the invisible bars and links were between these two 
to separate or join them, as might be, in enmity or 
friendship. Exiled, she was less a woman than the 
representative of a race. But Israel realised her 
illusion and spoke quickly, knowing it best to be honest 
this time. 

“ I am a Jew. But I am glad you are Tiszta Mag- 
yar,** His native instinct for flattery enabled him to 
assimilate the difficult words, knowing them to be 
agreeable to her ear. “ I want to go to Hungary. I 
come from Germany. I hate Germany. The Germans 
are schweinehunde.** 

‘‘ That is well spoken, little boy. And so you go to 
Hungary? I come from Kassa, where the old walls are 
washed by the Hernad.” 

“ To Kassa I go,” lied Israel, with magnificent im- 
pudence. “ I will go there when I have money. Now I 
earn it. I play the violin. Would you like to hear me 
play the violin?” 

As he spoke he opened the canvas case, took out the 
violin. Instinct again made him choose for this im- 
perious Hungarian woman two csardas he knew by 
heart. He played to touch her heart, softly and with 
melancholy, then faster and faster — as if he would 
suggest for her a draught of brown-gold wine — and 
faster still. He swung, this short little figure, with the 
rhythm of the dances, his red hair tossing on his head, 
a glow in his light-blue eyes. At last, in a tumult of 
sharp, discordant notes, he stopped, saw that the dark 
eyes were full of tears. 

‘‘ Little boy,” said the woman, ‘‘ you play well, if 


16 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


not so well as a gipsy. And so you go to Hungary. 
Are you sure to earn money on your way.?* ” 

Israel came closer, told her his story, how he had lost 
his grandfather, how he earned sometimes as much as 
a krone in a day. With crafty simplicity he described 
for her his sleeping-place of the last few weeks, a 
corner in a barge on the wharf of the Vistula. The 
woman looked at him in an inquisitive manner, but 
the memory of the csardas was warm within her. 

“ Little boy,” she said, “ what would you say if I 
took you to the station and bought you a ticket for 
Kassa.?” 

“ I would ask God to make the Tiszta Magyars 
kings of the earth.” 

The woman smiled, took him by the hand and led him 
out. An hour later, as twilight deepened, Israel was 
in a filthy wooden railway carriage that crawled east- 
wards. On the far horizon the Carpathians stood out 
black against the pale sky, like colossal lacework. 


II 

Israel leant over the parapet of the stone bridge 
and watched the swollen waters of the Hernad as they 
hurried towards the south. Round him lay the puszta, 
the great plain, fair enough with its meadows broken 
by willows, but empty save for a few groups of half- 
wild horses tended by csikos who were almost as wild. 
It was spring; on every blade of grass hung a pearl 
of dew, and as the air beat gently upon Israel’s brow, 
he could feel already the promise of the hot summer. 
It pleased the boy to think of the coming sun that 
would char the meadows brown and reduce the tur- 


BUD UNFOLDING 17 

bulent Hernad to meekness ; he saw the sun somewhat 
as a God, in his primitive pantheism. 

“ The sun,” he said aloud, still leaning over the 
bridge, ‘‘ is for everybody. For everybody,” he re- 
peated, “ while corn and horses are for some, and gold 
and fine clothes for a few.” 

The boy dwelled awhile on these strange facts. It 
struck him as peculiar that he might not walk on the 
land but might bathe in the water. Why should the 
one be for an owner, the other for everybody He 
wondered whether, if water could be captured and air 
reserved, the rich would make the poor pay a filler 
for a glass of water, or a korona for a breath. “ It 
would be worth a korona a breath,” he thought 
gravely, then laughed at the fancy: many years were 
to elapse before his mind returned again to this aspect 
of economics. Israel laughed again. It was not quite 
a happy laugh, not the laugh of the boy of twelve he 
now was; it was a laugh at, and not with the world. 
He had seen a great deal of the world during the last 
two years, in his position as tolerated violinist at the 
Hotel Szegen. The Hotel Szegen was a two-roomed 
tavern surmounted by six smaller rooms where slept 
waggoners, peasant priests and minor commercial 
travellers. In the low front room was a wooden bar 
behind which sat fat Szegen, the Slovak landlord of 
the inn, while his wife busied herself among the tables 
with her daughter Nadia, serving the rough customers 
with beer, pseudo-Schomlayer wine, gulyas and paprika 
pork. Israel thought moodily of the big smoky room 
full of shouting and quarrel, where he sat or stood the 
day long, his round back against the bar, until Szegen 
suddenly leant over, seized him by the ear or hair, and 
intimated that the company would relish an air. Israel 


18 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


would then wearily fit the violin into his shoulder, play 
a csarda or a polonaise until a little clapping was 
granted him. Wearily still, he would take from the bar 
a wooden box and solemnly go the round of the groups, 
thanking the generous for the couple of filler they 
slipped into it, though the money was not for him. 

Israel realised himself quite suddenly as enslaved and 
bled by this big Slovak, who thought himself kind be- 
cause he housed and fed him, generous because he gave 
him every Sunday half a korona to waste. It was 
intolerable, this life, he reflected, a life where labour 
was never done ; early dawn saw him up and swabbing 
with a wet rag the brown wood tables, sweeping out of 
the bar the refuse of paper and cigarette-ends and the 
mud brought in by the high boots of the customers ; 
then there were glasses and plates to wash with Nadia, 
knives to clean and to sharpen ; then came errands, 
ghastly errands among Magyars and Slovaks whose 
language he did not properly understand, errands 
in the old cobbled alleys of Kassa, when the red-haired 
boy found himself collecting behind him a mob of child 
pursuers who mocked his big hips and his long nose, 
shrilly crying after him the names of Jew and Judas 
Iscariot. In despair he would return to the bar to 
stand and to play music, to run for matches, for sugar, 
to beg and fawn and thank, under the lash of Szegen’s 
tongue. When evening came he could hardly stand for 
weariness, but even then he played on, swaying with 
the rhythm, his stomach empty and painful, or full of 
half-cooked pork and horribly heavy, his senses be- 
numbed with tobacco-smoke. And, as night fell and 
the customers became more boisterous, Israel found 
himself stupefied; he hardly knew how at last to reel 
to the bed of torn blankets gnawed by mice, filthy and 


BUD UNFOLDING 


19 


full of pests, which he shared in a tiny attic with 
Reshk Szegen, the sixteen-year-old son of the house. 

“ It is hell,” said Israel to the waters of the Hernad, 
“ there is no light in men. In women some, but they 
are but women.” He sighed, convinced of the weakness 
of women as an Oriental and as a man of the world. 
Women were not unkind to him: it was thanks to 
Szegen’s wife that he had been given this hour of 
liberty, now almost at an end; she was good, and 
Nadia, she too — Nadia with the fair hair and the eyes 
of slate — had for him at times a gentle word. But 
he shuddered as he thought of Szegen, his bulk, his flat 
blue jaw, his long straight hair and his terrible eyes 
of slate in which was no room for pity, for nothing 
save greed and fear of the things that wander half seen 
in the night. He shrank as he thought of the heavy 
hand that had often struck him across the face, of 
Reshk’s hand, almost as heavy. It was hell, and now 
he must go back. 

Israel turned away from the swollen river, said good- 
bye to the bay horses and their keeper, then slowly 
followed the cobbled streets past the houses of grey 
stone, past the great, tortured Gothic church, the 
many shops where a few Germans and Austrians, many 
Slovaks and Magyars, screamed and chaffered. With- 
out looking up he entered the bar. 

The low room was full almost, for it was cattle- 
market day. Szegen, idle in the bar, shouted angry 
orders to his wife, Nadia and Reshk as they hurried 
between the tables. As soon as he saw Israel his flat 
face crimsoned. 

“ Where have you been ? Answer.” 

“I went for a walk. Your lady . . .” 

“ Ah, you went for a walk ; come here.” Szegen 


20 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


seized him by the shoulder; Israel cried out, found 
himself held by the hair, struggled to explain that his 
absence was regular, but his scanty Slovak failed him ; 
he felt the hard hand against his cheek. Then, blinded 
with tears, he heard the command. 

“ Now, silence. Play. And play something that is 
merry.” 

Nadia, as she passed, threw him a pitying glance, 
but she was cumbered with an immense dish of paprika 
huhn and could not stop, while Reshk sniggered and 
whispered — 

‘‘ Cry, you dirty little Jew, whose father crucified 
Him.” 

Israel looked despairingly round the bare, white- 
washed room. There were no ornaments save upon the 
walls red and yellow pottery and, opposite the door, 
an immense chromo of Mr. Gladstone ; from the ceiling 
hung an eggshell decorated with pleated white paper 
representing the wings and tail of a dove, a symbol of 
the Holy Ghost. Nothing cheered him, not even the 
gay colours of Szegen’s red and green jersey, which 
often pleased him when they peeped from under his 
brown vest, nor fair-haired, friendly Nadia. Domi- 
nating his tears he played, hardly knowing what, frag- 
ments of AndreefF’s Polonaise Brilliante connected by 
improvisation. 

It was not gay, this fruit of his bruised soul, but 
Szegen did not notice him, for his customers were them- 
selves all gaiety. A group of Magyars, short-headed, 
large-handed and handsome, with their manes of black 
or tawny hair, their undipped beards, were wrangling, 
half in jest and half in anger, as to the merits of 
Andrassy. There was swearing and striking of the 
table with great hairy fists, and vows that a Kossuth 


BUD UNFOLDING 


would rise again. There was drinking too, which 
pleased Szegen; Nadia had to run from table to bar 
to keep the men in good vein. At last one of them, 
a big fellow with hair and beard profuse as a camel’s 
coat, staggered to his feet and sang — 

Tiszta Magyar am I, Tiszta Magyar, 

Tiszta Magyar am I, Tiszta Magyar. 

Sword have I and horse to ride 
And when I reach the Danube's side 
With purse of gold and my belly full of meat 
It is war, red war, I embrace and I greet. 

For there's Bulgar there and German too. 

There’s Serb and there’s Croat with beard of blue, 
Ruthen’s there and there’s Bosniak, 

Rumen’s there and there’s Wallach, 

There’s Turk who well can lie 
And Turk af eared to die: 

Not I. 

And why? 

Tiszta Magyar am I, Tiszta Magyar, 

Tiszta Magyar am I, Tiszta Magyar. 

As he sang, his big chest swelled under his loose white 
shirt; his great mop of black hair tossed in the air as 
he spat forth his hatred of those others whom the 
Magyar holds in his hand. The slumbrous fire of his 
fine black eyes blazed up, and his mouth, open and red 
as the nightmare of a cavern, Israel thought, gave 
forth in the roar of a trumpet the old Magyar dream 
of blood and battles, of blows struck for the Cross and 
for gold, for sinewy horses and black-eyed women. He 
sang, the Magyar, reared upon the pinnacle of his 
nationality, less like a king contemplating his subjects 
than like a slave-driver threatening his captives ; as he 


22 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


sang, the wine he had drunk seemed to ferment in him, 
to rush fumous into his brain, and there to irritate 
still further the passionate patriotism of his race. 
Round him his companions had risen, glass of brown 
wine in hand. They too took up the chorus, but the 
big voice alone boomed out again into its splendid roll, 
while Israel, cowering under his red crown, watched 
the Magyar, as helpless and as awed as if he witnessed 
an avalanche. The voice drowned the chorus, sprang 
into solitude — 

Tiszta Magyar am I, Tiszta Magyar, 

Tiszta Magyar am I, Tiszta Magyar. 

Back, back to Stamboul again. 

Or thy women’s tears shall flow like rain. 

I’ll noose thy horses and ravage all thy sheep. 

And Mahomet at Mecca shall stir in his sleep. 

I’ll water with blood the shade of the Cross 
And shatter and scatter thy mosq’s in the dross. 
Hounded from Carpath to Asia’s shore. 

With blood from thy breast I’ll baptize thee once more. 
Yea, Turk who well can lie. 

And Turk af eared to die. 

Not I: 

And why? 

Tiszta Magyar am I, Tiszta Magyar, 

Tiszta Magyar am I, Tiszta Magyar. 

Tiszta Magyar am I, Tiszta Magyar, 

Tiszta Magyar am I, Tiszta Magyar. 

Rocking with triumph I shall ride 
Back to my little dusky bride. 

Ah, littlest beloved who languishest for me. 

With passion and treasure return I to thee. 

Thou shalt greet me arrayed in a kirtle of red. 

With a garland of oak-leaf entwined ’bout thy head. 


BUD UNFOLDING 


2S 


Flask of Tokay in thy long dove-white hand 
And love that is golden and long as my sand^ 

'Spite Turk who well can lie, 

And Turk af eared to die. 

Not I: 

And why? 

Tiszta Magyar am I, Tiszta Magyar, 

Tiszta Magyar am I, Tiszta Magyar. 

Again and again the chorus rolled out. Szegen even, 
Slovak though he was, roared it out with all of them 
while Reshk, thin and vicious as a snake, piped forth 
his share of sound, and Nadia, for a minute idle, rested 
her back near Israel against the wooden bar. 

Then, and quite suddenly, the scene changed. Some 
muttered words had passed from one table to the other, 
and, in the middle of the low room, a dozen men were 
fighting with sticks and fists in the clumsy, untaught 
fashion of the soil. The Magyar whose voice had 
caused the wings of the dove to tremble lay on the 
floor, pinned and struck at by two small, wiry Slovaks, 
while the three other Magyars, beards a-fly and vests 
torn open, had thrown themselves at the other table. 
They were met by the fierce rush of half-a-dozen 
Slovaks with whom, as one of the Magyars imprudently 
shouted ‘‘ Dirty Germans ! ” a couple of big, fair 
Saxons joined. The Magyars were stronger than the 
Slovaks, two of whom were engaged simultaneously by 
the tawny bearded. He was a splendid creature, this 
Magyar, as he wildly whirled round his head a heavy 
staff. A Slovak seized a dinner-knife and leapt at him, 
only to be met by a crashing blow in the middle of the 
forehead. But another Magyar was down, and the 
third was being driven into a corner by the big Saxons. 


24 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


“ Dogs, dogs,” shouted the tawny-bearded Magyar, 
“ dogs,” and he struck down another Slovak, while the 
others fled before him, “ dogs, Kossuth will rise again.” 

The shouts were deafening; the Magyar under the 
table groaned as his Slovak foes struck him about the 
head, while the Saxons, abandoning their beaten enemy 
to the unhurt Slovaks, simultaneously attacked the 
tawny bearded. A table fell, an immense china dish of 
paprika pork spread as an orange pool over the floor. 
Still the tawny-bearded Magyar shouted “ Kossuth ! ” 
and whirled his staff, but the Saxons eluded the blows, 
seized him, rolled with him on the floor, tumbling on the 
struggling group of Slovaks. 

There were cries from Szegen, ineflPective protests 
from Reshk, who ran from the room. Nadia drew 
nearer to Israel, who, as he heard her scream, took her 
hand and protectively held it. For some minutes the 
fight raged, the other table was overturned, one of the 
Slovaks cried out, for as he rolled on the floor, he cut 
his hand open on a potsherd. Szegen ran from one 
group to the other, begging them to desist; his flat, 
blue jaws were tense with anxiety lest the damage 
should not be repaired. Nadia was weeping silently, 
and Israel, hardly knowing how more fear or sorrow 
could creep into his soul, held her hand the tighter. 
At last the combatants parted ; the Slovak bound up 
his bleeding hand, the big black-haired Magyar was 
raised from the floor and, half stunned, was helped up 
by his companions. A final altercation between Szegen 
and the Slovaks as to the cost of the broken crockery 
ended the riot, for the fighters one by one left the 
tavern, cursing because their wine had been spilled, 
and reluctantly compensating the inn-keeper. Szegen 
was in good temper, for the men had not bargained; 


BUD UNFOLDING 


25 


it was market day and they were flush with money; 
thus he had been able to make a korona or so on the 
damage. 

“ Nadia, Reshk, Israel, get to work, pick up the 
tables. Hurry, you little dog of a Jew, sweep the 
floor. And you,” he cried to his wife as she appeared 
at the inner door, ‘‘ go out and buy a new dish.” 

Within a few minutes the tavern was in order again, 
swept and ready, tables swabbed, new glasses found. 
But, just as Szegen’s blue jaw was relaxing into a 
smile, he noticed with horror that in the course of the 
fight a hole had been kicked into a blue jar in which 
were sometimes stored cranberries. 

“ Look,” he shouted, “ what is that ? ” His house- 
hold followed the outstretched brown finger. “ There ! 
the jar, broken, it is broken. Who broke it? Who saw 
it? You, you, Nadia, no . . . you were serving. 

. . . where is Reshk. . . . Reshk . . . ? Why 
was it not paid for? You should have said, any of 
you, you . . . Ah! ...” Suddenly his heavy gaze 
rested on Kalisch, who cowered against the bar in awful 
anticipation of punishment. ‘‘You . . .” said Szegen 
in low, harsh tones. He was cold as an executioner. 
“ You must have seen . . . you . . . you dirty 
little Jew . . . Ah ! ” 

Szegen vaulted over the bar, speechless now with 
fury, leaped upon his screaming quarry. He buried 
his hand in Israel’s red locks, dragging him across the 
room, gutturally murmuring threats. 

“ Father, father,” screamed Nadia, “ father . . .” 

But Szegen did not heed her; with a sweep of his 
right arm struck her across the body so that she 
reeled against the bar. He looked round him for an 
instrument with which to punish Israel, Near at hand, 


26 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


against the lintel of the inner door, was a whip with 
a plaited thong which Reshk used when driving home 
the two light cart-horses. This Szegen seized, still 
holding his victim by the hair, dragging him thereby; 
holding him at arm’s length he began to flog him with 
slow, measured strokes. 

“ One, two, three, dirty little Jew . . . four, 
five ...” 

“ Father, father, don’t,” screamed Nadia, who still 
cowered against the bar, but her voice was drowned in 
Israel’s shrieks as the thong descended upon his 
shoulders, upon his back, his hips. For a while he 
struggled like a rabbit in a trap, crying out shrilly as 
the whip fell, blindly guarding with his hands and 
screaming when the lash cut across them. 

“ No, no . . . ” he panted, “ don’t beat me, don’t 
beat me, oh . . . mother.” 

But Israel cried vainly in his despair for the 
mother he had never known. He cried out for her as 
do racked, strong men, well fed, beloved children, pup- 
pies, perchance, when lost in the streets. But Szegen 
laughed — 

“ One hundred and forty-four shall you have, dirty 
little Jew. Did not the Jews scourge Him? ” 

And little was heard for a while save the falling of 
the lash, the sobs of Nadia and the monotonous chant- 
ing of the strokes by Szegen. The boy could only 
moan now, without struggling — 

Oh, let me go, let me go.” 

“ Come, come,” said Szegen, laughing fiercely, “ be 
of good cheer, little son of the thirteenth, the hun- 
dredth is not reached yet. Come now, one good one for 
the legs, ah, that was well hopped . . . and one for 
the rump, by Solomon and David (see, I swear by the 


BUD UNFOLDING 


27 

proper men) ... to remember when you sleep . . . 
and another . . . ah, that w^as finely curled. . . 

The lash had circled round the shoulder, the tip 
had delicately marked the cheek with a point of 
blood. 

“ Father, father,” screamed Nadia, as she leapt for- 
ward and seized his arm, “ stop, stop ; look, he faints, 
he dies ...” 

Szegen did not strike again. His anger had fallen, 
and he had been flogging the boy in slow, sadistic 
style, thrilling with pleasure every time he felt in his 
arm, through the lash and handle, a quiver come from 
the body. He loosened his grasp of the thick, red hair. 
Israel fell to the floor, a crumpled heap of clothes, did 
not open his eyes w’hen Nadia feverishly held up his 
head. Szegen looked stupidly at the group, Nadia on 
her bent knees, her fair hair tumbled about her slaty 
eyes, from which tears slowly rolled down her cheeks. 

“ Well,” he said at last, “ he has learned his lesson. 
Take him away to sleep it out in his room.” 

For two days Israel lay in the attic, slowly recover- 
ing from coma. Szegen, a little ashamed, perhaps, did 
not send for him. Thus he saw Reshk only at night, 
who refrained from insulting him, for he was awed by 
the terrible flogging, and feared that if Israel died he 
might be accounted guilty. Szegen’s wife came fear- 
fully to see him night and morning, almost on the sly, 
as if by so doing she were disloyal to her husband. It 
was Nadia who tactily became Israel’s nurse, she who 
anointed his wounds with oil ; his state of collapse w’as 
such that he made no movement in protest when she 
gently removed his clothing, chafed his bleeding limbs 
in her rough little hands. When she had settled him 
on the pest-infested blankets he looked at her with 


28 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


immense blue eyes, saw tears in her own; a very faint 
smile fluttered about his dark red lips, which hardly 
moved as she quickly bent to kiss them. 

It was while Israel lay thus helpless that, on the 
third day, his reviving courage told him that he must 
never see Szegen again, that he must escape. Quite 
dispassionately he realised that Kassa had been a stage 
in his life, that other fields were open to him. He was 
too weak to be fired by the adventure of flight and 
discovery: he was not in search of adventure, but in 
search of peace, and with characteristic thoroughness 
he chose the radical means of escape. He guessed from 
words Nadia had let fall that Szegen was frightened 
and sorry, that he would probably never strike him 
again. But it was too late, and this he confided to 
Nadia when she acknowledged that her father was 
ashamed. 

‘‘ All things are different now,” he said ; “ your 
father has floated away.” 

‘‘Floated away.?” said Nadia, opening her eyes 
wide. 

“ Yes, he is no longer here. Before he beat me he 
was a man who fed me and was not always Cruel . . . 

now he is in another world, in the world of everyday 
... the beating is like a wall, and I cannot see him 
any more . . . if I cannot see him he is no longer 
there. ...” 

Nadia looked at him amazed, wondering whether he 
had gone mad. She could not know that the boy was 
groping his way towards Berkeley and Kant. But she 
listened more kindly when he told her of his plan. 

“ What will you do.? ” she faltered. “ How will you 
live.? ” 

“ Oh, I shall live, Nadia. I want to live.” 


BUD UNFOLDING 29 

“ But how? ” There were no abstract life-forces for 
Nadia. 

“ I shall play the violin. Oh,” and Israel’s eyes lit 
up, “ where is my violin ? ” 

“ It is in the bar,” said Nadia in a hesitating man- 
ner, a little frightened of the plot. 

Ah,” said Israel, “ then listen, Nadia. To-night, 
when Reshk sleeps, I shall come down, take my violin 
and go. Perhaps . . . you will put a little food 
there for me to carry away.” 

Nadia looked awhile into the great big blue eyes. 
Her heart was soft and fearful, and about it this 
sweet, mysterious boy had wound himself very close. 
It was terrible to think that he must go, leave her alone 
in the brutality of the tavern, with her savage father, 
her weak and cowed mother, Reshk the sinister craven. 
Her impulse was to cry out: “Take me with you, 
Israel, and I’ll go to the end of the world,” but she 
realised dimly that she could no more hold him than 
she could prison a will-o’-the-wisp, that he was of a 
stuff other than her own, and that to follow him would 
mean that, on reaching cross-roads, he would quietly 
say, “ Here part we, Nadia,” and leave her weeping. 
So Nadia clenched her little teeth together and said 
bravely enough, “ It is well, Israel ; doubtless my 
father would kill you in time.” But that night, when 
Israel, after having stolen from the garret where Reshk 
lay snoring, his boots in his hand, took his violin and 
a parcel of food from behind the bar, the inner door 
opened. He gave a start of horror, but it was only 
Nadia. The girl was in her nightdress, over which was 
thrown one of her father’s old sheepskin coats; her 
fair hair hung over her face, dim in the dark room. 

“ Quick,” she whispered, “ Israel, farewell, Israel. 


30 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


Take this.” She thrust a little packet into his hand, 
threw her arms round his neck. As he kissed her he 
could feel her breast heaving, her tears wetting hia 
face. 

‘‘ Farewell, good angel Nadia,” he whispered, as he 
softly slid back the bolt. Then Nadia saw him framed 
within the door, his face pale in the light of the moon ; 
the copper-red hair glittered as if touched with fire 
under its placid rays. 


Ill 

When daybreak came Israel had walked far south 
across the puszta, too wise to follow the road where he 
might have been seen. He had walked towards the 
south without consideration, probably because he had 
come south from Germany to Cracow, and then to 
Kassa ; besides the south meant light and warmth, wild 
fruits and dark men akin to his fathers. He sat down 
in the middle of a meadow, contentedly munched the 
cold gulyas and bread Nadia had given him. He was 
happy, almost cheerful, for his wounds did not now 
hurt him very much ; he stroked his old violin case, felt 
tempted to improvise in honour of the dawn, but fear- 
ing detection, refrained. In his pocket he found 
Nadia’s little paper parcel, which he opened with a 
gentle thrill as he remembered her tear-bathed eyes and 
felt her kisses on his cheek. The parcel contained two 
nickels of twenty filler each, three of ten filler and 
seventeen copper filler in pieces of one and two filler, 
altogether eighty-seven filler. Eighty-seven filler ! 
nearly a korona! Israel’s eyes lit up, it was wealth. 
But suddenly his greed turned to sorrowful gratitude, 


BUD UNFOLDING 


31 


for the irregularity of the sum showed that Nadia had 
given him everything she possessed. Then, just as he 
was about to throw away the paper in which the money 
had been wrapped, he saw there was something more. 
It was a piece of white cardboard on which Nadia had 
sketched with her untaught hand a profile of herself. 
Gummed on it was a short strand of her own fair hair ; 
the words “ For ever, Nadia,” were roughly written in 
block type, for Nadia, though she had learned to write, 
preferred to imitate the characters of newspapers and 
shop-fronts. 

“ Good angel, Nadia,” said Israel softly, as he 
slipped the picture into the pocket of his shirt. 
“ Farewell, good angel Nadia; I go to other worlds.” 

An hour later he was on the white road which 
streamed endlessly towards the south; he was some 
fifteen miles south of Kassa now and practically safe. 
With money in his pocket, the picture of a girl who 
loved him next to his heart, armed with unbounded 
self-confidence and the vast experience of his twelve 
years, he walked towards the south. He intended to 
stop at some attractive village, but at noon, when he 
suddenly passed from the flatness of the puszta into a 
long cobbled street, he found that the villagers were 
Slovaks. He shuddered as he hurried along the brook 
in which the women were washing linen, while the geese 
floundered about the edge. To hear Slovak again was 
horrible after the freedom of the night, for the Slovak 
words were Szegen’s as well as Nadia’s. He hurried 
past the low stone houses, did not look into the win- 
dows to see the familiar eider-downs. He did not even 
pause to buy bread, but flew, a frightened little figure, 
under the surprised slaty eyes of the people. Some 
minutes later he was again on the great silent road, 


32 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


with the Slovak village hidden behind a ridge. He 
threw himself down by the kilometre post and looked 
up towards the blue sky in which now the sun had 
risen. He lay in the immensity of the Hungarian 
plains, a speck marked by a crow who came and 
watched him awhile from a stone. The bird jumped 
from foot to foot, cawing, and after a while Israel 
found significance in its voice. 

Caw, black bird,” he said grimly, “ I know what 
you mean. You’re waiting for me to die and be nicely 
cured for you by the sun, but you’re wasting your 
pains, black old bird.” 

The crow ceased to caw, inclined its head to one side 
and blinked at him with an inquisitive air. 

‘‘ Ah? You have understood, black old bird. I’m 
not one of those who die. For isn’t the world too fine? 
I’ve been beaten and starved, old crow, but there’s a 
world somewhere that’s beautiful, old crow, or a world 
to make such. Do you think the world will grow, old 
bird? ” 

“ Caw,” said the crow. 

“You do? Grow like a tree? Or your next year’s 
feathers ? ” 

But the crow did not reply, for Israel had moved a 
hand, and the bird, realising that this body would 
probably not be ready for a long time, flew away 
towards the more profitable gutters of the Slovak 
village. And Israel Kalisch, his chubby white hand 
full of loose soil, let his mind browse a little in the 
succulent pasturage of his uncertain future ; he was not 
egotistic, did not see a world at the feet of an older 
Israel clad in the gold-braided uniform which means 
power, with beautiful women around him, with pockets 
full of money and many titles to his name. He did 


BUD UNFOLDING 


33 


not see anything precise, unless a dream be precise; 
he rather felt an atmosphere of beauty and peace, 
where there was no fighting and no abuse, where no 
blows were dealt, where there were good things to 
eat (and, alas for the atmosphere of beauty, he 

thought of garlic), red gowns and blue, sunlit skies, 

and on the wings of echo the strain of some heavenly 
choir perpetually singing. He wondered whether such 
a world existed and, if so, where it was ; more 
timidly he wondered whether the world he lived in 

could not be made fair. If we loved instead of 

hating, he reflected, we should not fight. If we 
did not desire money we should not lie. Yet we 
had to fight and lie . . . or die. How singular! 
He lay thus for half-an-hour, vainly trying to bend 
his mind to the understanding of the great world in 
which he was as surely lost as a goldfish in the Danube, 
except that he was far less assured a livelihood than 
the most sophisticated fish ever bred in an aquarium. 
Then, beyond the ridge, he heard the sound of wheels, 
of a man cursing the horses, the crack of a whip. At 
once fear seized him as he thought of Szegen, who 
might pursue him ; he clasped the violin-case and leapt 
to his feet, when he heard the voice again: it was 
cursing, but in German, and it thrilled him to hear 
the old language. A heavy cart slowly rose above the 
ridge, drawn by four horses, led by a perspiring man 
in black knickerbockers, high boots and an absurd 
smock decorated with brass buttons and tied in by a 
leather belt. This and his flat cap suggested uniform, 
and Israel’s heart warmed to the man, so definitely 
Teutonic was he in his taste. It was a big, fair-haired 
Saxon. He looked incongruous by the side of the low, 
rumbling waggon drawn by the wild red Hungarian 


34 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


horses with the unhempt manes and quivering nostrils. 
As the cart stopped when over the crest, Israel ran 
forward, and in a few seconds had found a friend. 

“ ScJion schorif** the waggoner repeated some dozen 
times, ‘‘ oh, it does one good to hear the old tongue 
again. But what do you want, Kerlchen? ” 

“ I want to go with you.” 

“ Oh, but you don’t know where I go to.” 

“You go towards the south. I was going that way 
too, but I have walked from Kassa in the night and I 
am tired.” 

“From Kassa?” said the waggoner, broad-mouthed 
with surprise, “ but Kerlchen^ Kassa is twenty-five kilo- 
metres away ; you could not.” 

“ I could,” said Israel softly, “ for ...” he hesi- 
tated, but he trusted this fair-haired Saxon, “. . . I 
was a prisoner there in a house where they made me 
play the violin ; they beat me and they starved me, so 
I ran away. And I want to go south to a town where 
I can live by playing the violin.” 

“ Can you really play the violin? ” asked the 'wag- 
goner, 

Israel did not reply, but put his case on the dusty 
road, and taking out the instrument, played the old 
Russian folk-song, “ When the Bride enters the Town 
with the Golden Key,” light and yet wistful, so simple 
in phrasing that the Saxon, at once taken back to his 
forests, gravely nodded to the rhythm, with a serious 
face. Then, before the man could express approval, 
Israel softly played Schumann’s Warum; he was the 
very essence of music, this little copper-crowned boy, 
his head all red with sunshine, his blue ^ eyes blinded 
with light, as he earned from the phlegmatic waggoner 
a seat on the cart. 


BUD UNFOLDING 


35 


“ Enough,” said the man at last ; ‘‘ I have wasted 
time, though well. Get on the cart and I will take you 
to Miskolcz, sixty kilometres away. And next my seat 
you will find black bread, a piece of bacon that was not 
cured by Russians, and you may drink beer from the 
little barrel under the rug.” 

And so they went on their way, these two, that day 
and the next, speaking little save when the waggoner 
returned to his seat when the plain stretched flat be- 
fore them. There was little to be seen; occasional 
villages, mere sleepy groups of wooden houses, the 
steely Tisza rolling its waters through low meadows, 
here and there a gipsy settlement of dangerous-looking 
dark men with masses of black hair, handsome black- 
eyed girls and naked brown children who sat in the 
road and scratched their heads. Mainly, however, 
they saw the puszta softly swelling round them, slowly 
rising towards the eastern hills ; here and there half- 
naked csikos, lasso in hand, watching wild horses ; 
occasionally a szegeny legenyek, a minor freebooter, 
who might have attacked them if the waggoner’s 
shoulders had not been so broad. Sometimes they 
talked, and, after telling him his story, Israel sorely 
puzzled the Saxon’s mind. 

‘‘ You are a strange Kerlcheriy^ he declared once 
after Israel had for a whole half-hour developed the 
idea that the world is what we make it. “ You speak 
of things you do not know. And yet it may be true 
that if we were all to vote for the Sozial Demokraten 
things would change.” 

“ What is a Sozial Demokrat? ” asked Israel. 

“ A Sozial Demokrat is a . . . well ... I can’t 
say exactly, Kerlchen, It’s a man who’s against the 
Government.” 


36 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


“Oh? Then I shall be a Sozial Democrat."" 

“ But what has the Government done to you, you 
little fool? ” 

“ It . . . ” and suddenly Kalisch gained a year or 
so’s mental development, “ it has done nothing for me. 
Is that not enough to show that it is bad? ” 

“ True,” said the waggoner at length, “ a Govern- 
ment should do good to little boys. The object of 
Government . . but the Saxon got no further, 
he could not find out what was the object of Govern- 
ment. 

“ The object must be to do good,” Israel sug- 
gested. “ Otherwise^ we are best without Government.” 

The Saxon scratched his fair head, which abstract 
ideas easily puzzled. “ Well, well,” he summed up, 
“ you will be a professor some day.” 

And so they slowly passed through the puszta, each 
one thinking in his own way, their eyes fixed upon the 
red flanks of the horses or on the endless fields. Israel 
passed the night with the waggoner in a scented hay- 
loft, for they dared not camp out among the timber 
with which the cart was laden for fear the szegeny 
legenyek should steal the horses in the night. Theirs 
was a happy companionship for two days, a com- 
panionship seldom broken save by some conversation 
which soon proved too subtle for the waggoner, or by a 
folk-song which readily brought tears to his kindly 
eyes. Slowly, in the warm spring air, fragrant with 
the young leaf of the oaks and the moist scent of the 
Tisza meadows, they went into the South. 


BUD UNFOLDING 


37 


IV 

‘‘And so, Cordelli, you go to-morrow?” 

“ Yes,” said the waiter. “ To-morrow. To-morrow 
the Siidbanholf, old friend. Trieste, Genoa. Amer- 
ica. Ah, Kalisch, it’s time I learnt English. You 
too, Kalisch, you too, you must learn English if you 
want to get on.” 

“ I don’t want to get on,” said Kalisch. He lifted 
from his head his gold-braided blue cap, stroked with 
a plump, white hand his rugged red locks. 

“ Don’t want to get on,” snarled Cordelli. “ You 
fool.” The little man was so violently agitated that 
he had to walk up and down the steaming scullery. 
He waved his arms, muttered in excited Italian, casting 
all the while fierce glances at the impassive, bo3ush 
figure. “ Don’t want to get on,” he burst out at last, 
“ what do you think you will become if you don’t? Do 
you think you’re going to wear that uniform all your 
life? Pretty, of course, and the girls have an eye for 
you, fat legs and all . . . oh, I beg your pardon,” 
faltered the little man. An immense histrionic con- 
tortion turned his thin face with the hard-lined mouth 
from scorn to sorrow, as he realised that he was in- 
sulting his friend. 

“ They are fat,” said Kalisch placidly, “ go on.” 

“ Well . . . anyhow . . . what are you going 
to do? You’re seventeen, a bambino, but sensible 
sometimes. What do you want?” 

“ To live.” 

“Well. . . if you want to live you must grow, or 
you wither.” 

“ Grow, Cordelli ? grow ? Why grow ? ” 

“ All beautiful things grow, Kalisch.” 


38 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


“ Cancers grow, Cordelli.” 

“ Ah ! silly,” snapped the waiter, ‘‘ fortune isn’t like 
cancer.” 

“ Are you so sure ? Maybe wealth is the world’s 
cancer.” 

“ Enough,” Cordelli screamed as he brought down 
his fist on the beer-soiled table. ‘‘ Enough . . . 
teorie ... I have no patience. You are a fool, a 
. . . Lausenkind, ...” 

“ I see you have been among Germans,” said Israel 
in a sauve voice. “ You are getting on, old friend, 
you will have your hotel.” 

The magic word caused the Italian’s features to work 
convulsively into a smile. “Ah? Do you think so? 
Yes. You do. You are intelligent, Kalisch. Listen, 
Kalisch, I will tell you. Now this is what I will 

do. . . .” 

And for the twentieth time Cordelli, leaning his 
soiled sleeves on the scullery table, explained his plan. 
He had been two years an apprentice in Venice, then 
had worked a year in Lyons, two in Vienna and Pest ; 
now he had five hundred lire in the savings bank . . . 
“ Safe old friend, safe ...” and money enough 
to pay his fare to New York. “ New York,” he 
shouted, and there was a glow on his face. His round, 
black eyeballs seemed actually to roll in the immense, 
yellowish whites. “ Ah, Kalisch, it was not easy to 
save seven hundred lire in five years . . . there was 
la vecchia madre too, two lire every week, old friend; 
still, she is dead now — God have her soul ! And now 
. . . one day in Venice, on the way to Genoa, old 

friend . . . and then . . . New York.” 

The golden dream expanded, New York, English 
added to the collection of languages, dollars piling in 


BUD UNFOLDING 


39 


the savings bank with the lire, the francs, the coins of 
all the world, piling, piling, for him, Cordelli, at the 
price of eighteen hours labour a day, seven days a 
week. And at last there would be another Cordelli, 
with a paunch, a good chain, yellow boots, a top hat, 
a cafe near- San Marco, a wife. . . . 

“ Ah,” sighed Cordelli, “ Carlotta, she waits for me, 
Kalisch, and long will she wait if she must. But you 
are too young to understand.” 

Kalisch laughed, not unkindly, but as if to say that 
Cordelli was wrong. 

“ Carlotta,” the waiter softly repeated. Then he 
suddenly became confidential: “You should see her, 
Kalisch. Oh, beautiful . . . her figure . . . big 
. . . oh, she is fine, fine. ...” 

Romantic, sensual, money-greedy, Cordelli elabo- 
rated his dream to the mildly interested youth, Kalisch 
sat, sprawled, rather, in a big arm-chair, the wicker 
of which was broken in a dozen places. It was unfit 
for work on the pavement outside the kavehaz. It was 
his favourite seat because the scullery w’as on the whole 
quieter than the rest of the eating-house; that day 
even the sluttish German girl who washed the dishes 
with her lobster-red hands was busy in some other 
place. He lay, a plumpish, short figure, ungainly in 
the blue and gold uniform which sat ill on his heavy 
hips. He had changed in no wise save in bulk since 
the days when he wandered, a little copper-haloed boy, 
in the streets of Cracow and Kassa. There was in his 
eyes, light as blue water, the same dreamy quality; 
his heavy red locks hung luxuriant about his white 
brow, and freckles, like fine bran, still speckled his 
white neck. A beautiful youth was Israel Kalisch, 
despite his heavy nose, his coarse, blood-red mouth. 


40 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


And now, as he lay negligent in the old arm-chair, lis- 
tening with tolerance to Cordelli’s excited gabble, he 
seemed a ripe man who observed in a kindly spirit the 
vagaries of a youth. The last five years of his life 
had been adventurous enough, though he would not 
have called them such, for he knew little of any mode 
of life where wealth of a kind, poverty, happiness and 
sorrow, persecution, pain and joy did not perpetually 
alternate. The Saxon waggoner had left him in Mis- 
kolcz to pick up a living by begging, playing the violin 
in a friendly kavehaz, or at times helping out for a few 
filler some overworked errand-boy. He survived. He 
found food and shelter after starvation and stripes. 
He was still a “ dog of a Jew,” but he became too big 
for the street children to molest ; he gained more 
knowledge of the world, learned some Magyar, learned 
to read, though he avoided with splendid skill the 
local authorities who, in Hungary, will not let boys 
wander. Town after town, Eger, Gyongyas, Vacz, 
he passed through, sometimes on foot, sometimes on a 
cart laden with hay, once (and to his immense discom- 
fort) on a raw red horse a friendly gipsy was taking 
to the nearest market town; and once again, in fine 
adventure, hidden among the coal with his violin in a 
southurard-bound goods train. Yes, Israel Kalisch 
knew the world. 

And now, at seventeen, he was in Pest, second violin 
in the blue and gold band of the small kavehaz which, 
just round the corner fifty yards from the Hotel Hun- 
garia, looks askew over the Corso and the Danube 
towards the Buda bank. The kavehaz lived of the 
neighbourhood of the Bristol and the Hungaria and, 
for reasons known to its proprietor alone, had made 
up its mind to be German rather than Magyar, to sell 


BUD UNFOLDING 


41 


much beer and little wine, and to be bourgeois. It 
was for this reason that no magnetic czigany played 
their fierce music, but Germans, of which Kalisch was 
one. He had no talent, it appeared, but merely irreg- 
ular brilliancy, so he remained second violin, supplied 
the first violin with rosin, went to customers when 
wanted to note a “ requested ” piece, and collected in 
the tin money-box the scanty wages of his importunity. 
He played from eleven to three, from five to nine, from 
ten to two in the morning, between which hours were 
sandwiched sleep, meals, education and pleasure. For- 
tunately the meals did not take long unless the leavings 
were large ; nor did exercise matter, for after all Kalisch 
was of the East. He slept with the rest of the band 
(excepting the first violin) in one large room which 
also housed a waiter, for the proprietor rightly thought 
that it was a pity to waste room in a bed that was 
big enough for three. Kalisch had once most suc- 
cessfully sketched the conditions of his life to an odd 
angol who had questioned him. 

“ You see,” he had said, ‘‘ you English gentlemen, 
you would not understand how we do not care. You 
talk of comfort as if it was God. It matters, yes. 
But, like other things, we can do without it. I sleep 
with two ... I could sleep with twenty, after a 
while. True, sir, we cannot have baths, but do we 
want to.^ And there are insects in our room, but there 
are things worse than insects in the air, and you swal- 
low them. There is no time for pleasure, but there is 
no time for sorrow. What do all things matter, 
sir.^ ” 

“ So you are contented ” the inquisitive Englishman 
had said. 

“ No,” said Kalisch, “ there is another life, where 


42 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


money buys food and clothes, and leisure and books, 
and one is loved by beautiful women.” 

“ And don’t you want it.? ” 

“ No. Not for me, unless . . . it is common.” 

“ Common ? ” 

“ To all,” Kalisch had said softly. He had thrown 
his head back to look at the sky and spoken slowly, “ I 
could not love, sir, when others went with empty hearts, 
be rich when they starved, be learned when they could 
not read. All, sir, all.” 

The inquisitive Englishman had called the queer boy 
a Socialist and walked away after giving him a korona. 
But Kalisch knew that there was something wrong 
about the label ; he had learned what the Sozial Demo- 
kraten were, and their system did not seem to mean 
freedom. 

Now it was a little after three. Cordelli had gone 
back to his tables, and Kalisch passed through the 
kavehaz to go out on the Corso ; he stopped to hear the 
Telephon Hirmondo on the wall bellow forth the news 
of the day, found it was giving out the tape prices. 

“ Money,” he murmured and, shrugging his shoul- 
ders, passed out of the kavehaz anl turned into the 
Corso. As the day was cool, already an immense 
crowd was about, streaming away towards the Stef- 
ania-Ut. Among them were the typical women 
of Pest, short, dark, broad-shouldered and heavy- 
breasted ; they passed in couples, laughing rather 
hoarsely, and glancing covertly from under their im- 
mense black eyelashes at the waisted youths with waxed 
moustaches and panama canes. Among them were 
many soldiers in light blue short coats. At every kave- 
haz sat small crowds, mostly sedate, portly men with 
Turkish faces, deeply engaged in conversation over 


BUD UNFOLDING 


43 


tall glasses of pale beer or small coloured tumblers of 
light brown wine. Almost every one had in his mouth 
a long, rough, black cigar. Kalisch had to wait some 
minutes before he could find a break in the traffic, now 
a mass of two-horsed carriages and fiakers, among 
which, here and there, a horseman displayed his Eng- 
lish breeches and his small bowler. The police gave 
him no help, merely stood by the side of the standards 
that carried the great arc lamps, and twisted their 
moustaches or played with the nickel official numbers 
on their chest. At last Kalisch found a break, darted 
under the nose of a horse, past some English tourists 
who stood petrified in the middle of the Corso, escaped 
a bicycle and reached the parapet. He did not turn 
to see the crowding Corso just then, but looked at the 
broad river on whose breast a red-painted steamer 
puffed southwards, dragging behind her an intermin- 
able train of floating logs. She was wonderful, this 
slow ship, as she went down the stream, looking like a 
great red duck ; as she drew taut and then slackened 
her hawser the logs wavered, seemed to stop, and then 
to leap forward as if animate. Kalisch watched her 
almost out of sight, glad of all her details, of the black 
figures that sunned themselves on her dirty deck, then 
looked at the flat blue water, at the barbarous modem 
chain bridge, at the royal palace on the Buda bank, a 
long, low building perched upon a hill, surrounded by 
tree-grown slopes. 

“ Beautiful,” he muttered, “ shone blaue Donau, 
beautiful. You are like the tears of a southern sky. 
And, Burg, you too are beautiful, you home of a 
tyrant; you have beauty, the people have not, for the 
people know no beauty, you have their sense of beauty. 
Burg, tyrant Burg. You have stolen it.” 


44 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


For a long time Kalisch stood at the parapet, his 
heavy white chin on his hands, as he realised with im- 
mense despair that the people were inferior because 
they were inferior. He had seen too much of the people 
in his seventeen years to retain illusions as to their 
taste, their manners or their ambitions. He know the 
lower classes to be truly low, greedy, brutal, lustful, 
drunken; he knew that the great royal palace, even 
though it meant bayonets, oppression, corruption, 
meant also learning, generosity and the understanding 
of beauty. “ These people,” he thought, “ are the 
aristocracy. They are finer than the herd, for some- 
thing in them is fine. Each one is not vile, but all are 
vile because their class is a class of robber-knights. 
Let them have the money, the food and the women; 
but they have our greater goods, our education, our 
graces, all the things we have lost and which, lost, 
leave us brutes.” 

He deeply felt this humiliation, this thoughtful 
youth; he wanted to weep, and sometimes wept, when 
he thought of the sons of these rich men, who learned 
Latin and dancing, to draw, to play the violin . . . 
to play it better than Kalisch the second fiddle, because 
they could pay Sevcik. That day, as on many an- 
other, he dragged with him the heavy load of inferior- 
ity summed up by his absurd uniform. Whatever he 
might do he could not become as those others, the rich. 

“ Only if the rich become poor,” he mused, “ can the 
poor become as they. Life is a handicap now, as the 
Englander say. Not for ever, perhaps.”/ 

Then his thoughts became less sharp. He had said 
“ not for ever,” and when Kalisch said “ ever,” 
“ never,” “ one day,” any such mystic word-keys of the 
future, suddenly his hard reason would leave him, his 


BUD UNFOLDING 


45 


spirit would bound like a fresh horse released incau- 
tiously from the stable, who goes racing across the 
meadows and greedily draws the fresh wind into his 
lungs. He no longer saw the Burg or thought of 
Chancellors and gold braid; he hardly knew what he 
saw, for it was more than the known world. It was 
something infinite and yet shapely, with room for every 
star in every one of which lived a new race in per- 
fect harmony; it was a new solar system, without 
law or lust, without war and without conquest; it 
was a macrocosm of colour and sound, something like 
a lovely mist in which a faint but balanced race lived 
out a life of ethereal beauty to the crooning of the 
music of the spheres. 

Kalisch stayed very long leaning against the para- 
pet, so sunk in his vague thoughts that he heard with 
a start the striking of five. He drew himself together, 
found himself stiff and cold, for as the day waned a 
freshness rose from the river. He sighed, looked again 
at the Burg, then turned to be blinded by the sun as 
it set over the Hungaria. Then, more slowly than the 
hour warranted, he returned to the kavehaz. He re- 
turned there with Cordelli in his mind and a vague 
desire to emulate him, not of course to get on, for he 
wanted too keenly to live to think of such things, but 
to see something more of the world, to find perhaps in 
another land a place where he was no dog of a Jew, 
and where, perhaps, the poor were closer to the rich. 
“ So is it in America,” he reflected, “ for the rich have 
not long been rich. It is not too late to overtake them, 
for they have not had time, I expect, to learn to be 
worthy of wealth.” 

He often reflected upon this apparent contradiction 
in his own mind, for he knew that wealth coarsens and 


46 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


degrades, while it also raises and refines. He was sure 
only that wealth, now foul, was in itself fine, but like 
a dangerous drug it was not for the use of fools. To 
level, anyhow, to prevent the congestion of wealth, to 
allow man to grow with it and to learn how to be its 
master, not its slave, that was what the world wanted. 

Kalisch saw Cordelli go, returned to his slavery. 
His purpose strengthened, his dreams seemed to ma- 
terialise; he found himself thinking of America, the 
people’s land,, where no man’s blood was better than 
another’s, where any poor man could become rich, 
where wealth had thus no arrogance. He lived on, 
playing the second violin as an automaton, slept care- 
lessly with his two bedfellows, maintained his indiffer- 
ence to baths. A very little money hft spent on such 
things as the Vorwdrts, Heine in the popular edition, 
on strange pictures out of Jugend, because he loved 
their hot colour. The rest he saved. When, a year 
later, Cordelli wrote him from New York, telling him 
of his post in a restaurant near Madison Square and 
incoherently babbling of his future hotel, of San Marco 
and of Carlotta (“ big, old friend . . . you should 

see her big, fine figure ”), Kalisch was ready, Jew-like, 
he found no pain in the uprooting, for what was to 
him Hungary or Germany or Palestine? One nation 
or the other, all were made of the same stuff. 

And so, laden with eighteen years of boyhood, with 
the sumptuous grime of Hungarian cities, with the 
beastliness of life, starved of human love, and rich in 
love of beauty by piracy alone, with little money in 
his purse and vermin in his red hair, Israel Kalisch 
made for the great open land where he thought to 
become free. 


CHAPTER III 


A GR-EAND COUNTRY 

I 

As the ship passed through the Narrows Kalisch real- 
ised diverse America. To the right of him lay the 
populous shores of Long Island, to the left those of 
Staten Island, thinly built and so covered with woods 
as to please the eye, for it was May and softly warm, 
but he was not concerned with either ; already he could 
see some miles ahead of him the colossal statue of 
Liberty, who thrust her torch into the air; the iron 
and copper goddess was too far for him to see her eyes, 
but, in his innocent idolatry, he felt certain that there 
was in them no grimness for him. Indeed, as time 
passed and the ship drew nearer, he discovered friendli- 
ness in the sombre face, but soon again his attention 
wandered. Kalisch stood wedged in a porthole with a 
German, his head out and his red hair flattened by the 
wind ; before his amazed eyes Brooklyn slowly travel- 
led, an immense disordered mass of red-brown buildings, 
broken into by the spears of sky-scrapers and by 
smoke-stacks. He lost the statue of Liberty, saw 
naught save the streaming houses of Brooklyn. The 
German by his side babbled incessantly. 

“ Look, look,” he cried, “ the ships, the many ships ! 
And so many houses. Ach, there will be good business 
here.” 

“ I hope so,” said Kalisch, while his heart fluttered 
excitedly, but the German would have no doubts. 

“ Oh, don’t be like that,” he growled. “ You try, 
47 


48 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


you get good business. ...” And then : “ Look, 
look, a church, and factories, many factories . . . 
another church.” 

Kalisch was irritated by the childish prattling, 
shrugged his shoulders. Baby-man ! Then he saw the 
Battery, its gardens, the hundred piers of Manhattan, 
he heard behind him the confused cries of the emi- 
grants. 

“New York! Neu Yor-rkl . . . dere . . . see 
. . . Niow Yawk ...” He could hear nothing in 
the tumult of tongues save the great word. Again 
when, at Ellis Island, he landed with his four hundred 
fellows from the steerage, he discovered that he was as 
helpless as any of them in presence of the uniformed, 
bright-faced immigration officers. He felt like a sheep 
driven into the slaughter-house in this screaming, fetid 
crowd; he found himself stumbling up steps, pushed 
through corridors; oflScers shouted at him in French, 
Italian, German ; he was so hurried, so bewildered, that 
he did not recognise in time his mother tongue, but was, 
after several further experiments, handed over to an 
officer who, in one minute, ascertained in Magyar that 
he could be admitted. For a while he stood watching 
a couple of Russians, detained as suspected criminals, 
but he did not speak to the two little dark men, who 
waited patiently for freedom or a deportation order. 
The latter would probably mean Siberia. A last jostle 
on the ferry. Then West Street, a tumbling over the 
plankways, Kalisch stood in the midday sun, carrying 
in one hand a bundle of clothing tied in a red and blue 
cloth, in the other his old canvas violin-case. 

He stood a long time watching the buildings, dirty 
brick or dirty stone, which seemed immense to him 
though they attained barely ten storeys. The roar 


BUD UNFOLDING 


49 


of Manhattan, made up of the rush of millions of feet 
and voices, the shrieks of the steam whistles and the 
continuous groan, broken by rattlings, of the Elevated 
in Greenwich Street, filled his ears, dazed him by the 
violence of its impact. Very soon the immigrants had 
gone in large and noisy groups, kissing, quarrelling 
with their friends. Here and there a few stood, like 
him, lonely, waiting for a hand to direct them. 
Stupidly, like him, they examined the carts as they 
backed in scores against the piers, waiting for their 
load. A black-clad dock missionary came up to him. 

“ Are ye a stranger.? Do ye know where to go to.? ” 

Kalisch looked at him stupidly, but the English he 
had painstakingly learned at Pest and practised on 
board did not help him to understand the queer nasal 
voice. 

“ Wasp ” he asked. 

The missionary repeated his questions, but Kalisch 
could not understand, gathered from the man’s cos- 
tume that he was some kind of priest, and found him- 
self wondering how so bright a young man could be 
religious. At last he collected some words. 

“ I wait Cordelli.” 

“Who is Cordelli.?” 

“ Cordelli.” 

“Yes, but where does he live? What is he? Did 
he say he would meet ye? ” 

Kalisch did not understand, swung the red and blue 
bundle. 

“ Cordelli,” he repeated, “ Hotel d’Espagne.” 

“ Ah,” cried the missionary. “ Follow me. I’ll put 
ye in the El’ an’ ye’ll be on the pig’s back.” 

Kalisch was dragged along by the bright-faced mis- 
sionary, through a long street of black houses that 


50 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


were like enormous cubes pierced each one with hun- 
dreds of holes. He emerged into a street in which was 
the Elevated on its pillars, where car after car roared 
by, close over his head. He found that his guide was 
still talking, smiling with gold-plated teeth, as he al- 
most ran by his side; then he was on a moving stair- 
way, then hanging on a strap in a car where a pretty 
girl with fair hair and a hard mouth, who hung from 
another strap, half lay upon him with the odd sexless- 
ness of her nation. So much did this impress him that 
he dumbly showed her a scrap of paper he held between 
his teeth, on which the missionary has scribbled “ 42nd 
Street.” She looked at him contemptuously, then un- 
derstood. 

“ You wait, Dutchy,” she said at last, “ I’ll wake ye 
when the baby squalls.” And at 42nd Street, she 
pushed him off the car. Stranded on the platform he 
found that, together with his bundle, he was holding 
a tract and a leaflet thrust upon him by the missionary. 
The tract he decided to read later as an exercise. The 
leaflet puzzled him more, for it was not written in the 
English he had learned in Pest — 

“Are You RIGHT with God.? 

If not, get RIGHT. 

RIGHT here.” 

Israel reflected that there must be a good many curious 
things in America. 

II 

He did not find it easy to enter the Hotel d’Espagne. 
It was so fine that it had an immense German door- 


BUD UNFOLDING 


51 


keeper who, in blue and gold, looked very much like a 
Garde officer. He gave the obviously Jewish emigrant 
one look and said — 

“ Git.” 

“ Cordelli,” said Kalisch. 

‘‘ Scoot,” said the German, and, to show that he was 
a real American, ‘‘ cheese it.” 

“ Cordelli,” Kalisch persisted. 

“ Hoose Cordelli.? Tammany boss.? ” 

Kalisch looked at him in despair. He must find 
Cordelli or be lost; still the man was obviously asking 
him questions, which was encouraging. After some 
thought he got out the word “ waiter.” 

‘‘ Ah.? ” said the German, “ wait by the side door 
while I smell around for ye.” As Kalisch did not seem 
to understand he seized him by the arm to lead him to 
the side door and, in his excitement, called him “ EseV' 
At once Kalisch burst into German — 

^^Ach, bitte Herr Oberkellner. . . 

“ Keep a lid on,” the German snarled, “ I ain’t a 
Dutchy ; ” he was angry because exposed as a non- 
American, but he liked “ Oberkellner” Kalisch’s 
racial sagacity, so readily turned to flattery, had 
served him well, for within five minutes a small, dark 
Cordelli, as wiry, as thin as ever, hurled himself at 
him and publicly kissed him, without attracting in the 
least the attention of 42nd Street. 

“ Ah, how you have grown, Kalisch . . . that is 
good . . . but I cannot stop ... I have a party 
upstairs.” He drew himself up, thrust out from his 
coat his white shirt-front. “ A party worth a million 
dollars a head,” he superbly repeated. “ But come 
back at eight. This is my evening off. Ah, Kalisch 
you will see, what a country ! What a gr-rand 


52 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


countr-ry! But I will tell you all about it at eight 
. . . about Noo Yor-rk . . . about Carlotta. . . . 

Ah. . . 

The little man rushed away from him, back to his 
galley and his oar, Kalisch thought. As he walked 
away his full red mouth was smiling at this absurd, if 
friendly, little atom, doubtless now busying some min- 
utes of his life with the party “ worth a million dollars 
a head.” Kalisch turned into Sixth Avenue and, re- 
membering that he had come from the south, aimlessly 
walked north until he reached Central Park. Sixth 
Avenue he found far less disturbing than the docks ; 
while these had been strange and a little terrible to a 
landsman. Sixth Avenue appeared merely as a string 
of great shops. Already Kalisch hardly looked up to 
the Elevated: he might have bought a ticket if he had 
known what to say. The dry-goods stores left him 
unmoved; he had seen their like in the Waiznerstrasse ; 
he looked into their immense plateglass windows, at 
their shows of canned goods, women’s underclothes and 
veneered furniture, with the blase citizen air of his race. 
He knew all about this town. It was just a town, 
where the houses were taller than he had expected. 
That was all. Perhaps, though, as he passed 53rd 
Street and noticed that here the press of well-clad 
negroes increased. New York struck him as peculiar, 
but he shrugged his heavy shoulders : not for nothing 
had he lived in the country of the forty nations. And 
Central Park was merely for him a pleasant spot where 
he could sit on a bench and decipher at the base of the 
Daniel Webster statue such words as were not hidden 
by foliage: ‘‘Liberty and Union. . . and for ever 
. . . inseparable.” 

“ A good augury,” thought Kalisch, as he sat in the 


BUD UNFOLDING 


53 


sun and stroked the violin-case, “ though all men here 
do not wear cloth of gold. Still, we shall see. Did 
not Cordelli say it was a gr-rand country? ” 

But Cordelli was greatly disappointed when, at eight 
o’clock, he appeared to meet Kalisch in an extraordi- 
narily tight suit, a grey felt hat and a red tie. Kalisch 
knew too much about New York. He had already 
found out how streets and avenues were numbered; he 
had located the tunnel, the Belvedere in Central Park, 
and noticed that bootblacks were niggers. 

“ I will take you to a house in Mulberry Street,” 
announced Cordelli, “ to Paolo ; he is a good friend, 
Paolo, of my blood. His mother was a second cousin 
of my aunt Maria. He will take you for two and a 
half dollars. Cheap, old friend, cheap.” 

“ Then,” said Kalisch languidly, “ as this bundle is 
heavy we will take the El’.” Cordelli threw him an 
amazed glance, then burst into consecutive roars of 
laughter. 

“ El’,” he gasped, “ EP . ; . in a week you will be 
an American. ...” 

“ I am an American,” said Kalisch smiling, “ am I 
not a man? ” 

“ You are a Dutchy,” replied Cordelli, laughing still, 
“ for one week. Now come with me to Paolo.” 

Kalisch left to Cordelli the magnificent wrangle with 
Paolo. Paolo, who kept a lodging-house in Mulberry 
Street, was as fat as Cordelli was thin, but in no wise 
sluggish. 

“ Santo Dio . . . two dollars . . . no, Cordelli, 
no, I would rather die than take it . . . It is three and 
a half dollars. ... I swear by all the saints that I 
shall lose on three and a half.” 

“ No,” screamed Cordelli, “ you fat guzzler . . 


54 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


you save a thousand lire every month . . . two and a 
quarter dollars, . . 

“ By the fire of heaven you lie, Cordelli. . . . 
Three. ...” 

“ Two and a quarter, son of a pig. . . . ” 

“ Cordelli ...” Paolo spoke in a hushed yoice, 
‘‘ remember I haye a wife and child, yet . . . under- 
stand you drive me to beggary . . . two and a half.” 

“ Vampire . . . usurer,” screamed Cordelli, “ must 
I betray my friend.? Yet two and a half be it, oppres- 
sor of the poor.” 

Hands were c^sped and fury fell. Fat Paolo 
wheezed towards a cupboard and drew from it an enor- 
mous wicker-clad jar of Chianti. All three, the new 
lodger, the ruined son of a pig and the betrayer of a 
friend, drank cheerily together. The two Italians dis- 
cussed the gr-rand country, the latest acquittal of a 
corrupt policeman, Carlotta. 

“ Ah, Carlotta,” said Cordelli softly, “ you should 
see her, Paolo, so great, so fine . . . her figure 
. . . ah, beautiful. She will be of your blood, 
Paolo, when she is wed to me. For were not your 
mother and my aunt Maria great-nieces of Giuseppe 
Caro.? ” 

“ True,” said Paolo. “ Take more Chianti, my 
brother.” 

Thus was Israel Kalisch introduced into Mulberry 
Street. It was a happy situation for a cosmopolitan. 
The Chinese clustered but one block east, in Mott 
Street, back to back with their Italian neighbours, while 
the great ghetto of Hester Street and Grand Street, 
cleaving Mulberry Street in half, housed in thousands 
the Poles, Germans and Russians, all united by their 
common faith. Three blocks east lay the Bowery, all 


BUD UNFOLDING 


55 


small huckstering shops, concert halls, Jewish theatres 
and evil little saloons where none might drink who 
feared the “ knock-out drop.” As soon as Israel 
passed the exceedingly dirty door of Paolo’s house, his 
violin in its canvas case under his arm, he plunged 
into a crowd whose elements were so dissimilar that 
they did not clash with him. Yet, in those days, the 
figure of Israel was strange enough. His thick hips 
rolled in brown corduroy trousers, too broad even for 
them, and tapering to his thick but sharp-toed black 
boots ; he wore a black coat and vest, both somewhat 
rusty, a celluloid collar and a large flowing blue tie. 
But the face gave dignity to this figure of musician- 
like vagrancy; it had repose and there was cool under- 
standing in the blue eyes, while under the soft, shape- 
less brown hat the red curls glittered whenever he 
quickly moved his head in the light. Even Paolo, who 
“ hired ” to some sixty persons a thirty-roomed tene- 
ment house and was well accustomed to fights, flittings, 
love, ruin and success, felt that his lodger was not so 
ordinary as the ordinary. 

“What ye goin’ to do if ye don’t get a job? ” he 
asked, as he took from Kalisch two and a half dollars 
for the second week. 

Israel looked at him steadily rather than suspici- 
ously. He understood American now, even Paolo’s 
American, which was rather odd, and felt that the man 
was beginning to wonder how long he would pay. 

“ I get a job,” he said shortly. “ Jobs is made for 
men.” 

“ Hope so,” said Paolo, laughing fatly, “ hope 
there’s a job made for ye. But don’t ye let the foot 
swell in the boot, sonny, or it’ll be a pig’s work for ye.” 

This good advice was too American for Kalisch, 


56 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


who veiled his ignorance by questioning Paolo as 
to the health of his wife, Bessie, and his baby girl. 
He listened, politic but not understanding, to the flood 
of information Paolo poured on him, watched the man’s 
fat, bluish cheeks heave, his mouth curl into smiles as 
he described how the baby was trying to talk, begin- 
ning to form “ b’s ” and “ d’s,” even complicated nasal 
“ n’s.” A kindly man, Paolo, and then suddenly 
Kalisch realised that his kindliness was the reaction of 
his ferocity. He could not love his wife and child so 
singly unless he were at war with the world, ready to 
turn a defaulter adrift, to break the laws against 
gambling and liquor-selling, to condone for money the 
sins of any of those shapes who returned to him late 
at night, drunk or laden with suspicious bundles. 
Kalisch had no respect for the law, but he could not 
bear to look upon this fellow, entrenched behind his 
possessions, loving his family because it was his, and 
ready to injure for its sake anything in the world. 

“ I get a job,” he repeated stiffly, and walked out. 

But two more weeks passed and Kalisch found no 
job. He was but little at the lodging-house, where he 
ate a rough breakfast of bread and coffee, without 
condiment save salt, together with the lodgers, day 
waiters, glass-workers and barbers. « These were the 
bachelors and rich enough to hire a bedroom ; the mar- 
ried men, who crowded in one room with their ever- 
growing families, did not appear. The food was 
served in Paolo’s little office-parlour, behind the big 
front room, by English Bessie, who perpetually abused 
Paolo, wrangled with the lodgers and, in the intervals 
of informing Luigi or Pietro that coffee for six was not 
coffee for seven, was given to rushing into the front 
room to seize and nurse her baby girl. Round the un- 


BUD UNFOLDING 


57 


moved Kalisch argument raged in a perpetual storm 
of words, voices rose in sonorous Italian periphrase, 
were suddenly broken into by a sharp Americanism. 

‘‘ Now, Ludwig,” he could hear Paolo mutter, “ don’t 
ye be late with the rent. Hear.?^ Y’er a day late. 
Hear.?” 

Yes, boss.” Kalisch, looking sideways, could see 
a blush on the German’s heavy cheeks. “ Ye’ll have it 
if I pawn me shirt.” 

“ Ye couldn’t pawn it for a laundry check,” Paolo 
gurgled, with fierce innuendo. And, as the defaulter 
looked away, Kalisch felt hard on him the cruelty of 
the system which made Paolo, the rent-racker. Upon 
the dirty plastered walls were stuck posters of “ Stir- 
the-Dead-Brandy,” gift almanacks ; an abominable oil- 
painting of a lake purporting to be Italian stood above 
the chief steam-heat pipe, while two Madonnas in red 
and blue stared on the pitchpine chest of drawers. It 
was squalid, heavy and in every detail ugly ; the mat- 
ting on the floor was ragged, Paolo was gross, dollar- 
greedy, poor, and a preyer on the poor. From the 
front room Kalisch could hear Bessie singing to her 
baby in the Cockney voice that New York had not yet 
overcome — 

“ Doisy, Doisy, 

Gimme yer answer, do; 

For I’m goin’ crizy. 

All for the love o’ you. 

It won’t be a stylish marriage. 

We cawnt . . .” 

And then she would burst into the back parlour, her 
fair hair a-fly. 


58 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


‘‘ ’Old yer rah, yer Dutchies,” she would shout ; 
cawn’t yer see yer wikin’ the kid.” 


Ill 

Within six weeks Kalisch had come down to his last 
dollar. He had found no work. Nowhere, appar- 
ently, was a violinist wanted, neither at the Hotel 
d’Espagne, where Cordelli’s plea on his behalf had 
been curtly rejected, nor at any of the hotels where 
he applied ; his bad American was against him ; his 
playing was not good enough, or he had no money to 
bond against a uniform. He became accustomed to be- 
ing ejected by liveried commissionaires, even to being 
insulted by niggers who felt that this Dutchy was not 
yet an American. Down and down went his money, 
however little he might eat ; first he frequented the quick 
lunch rooms of Fourteenth Street and the Kosher 
houses of Grand Street, where a quarter bought a 
meal; then he found himself eating bread and sausage 
in some dirty little lane by the East River, or content- 
ing himself with a cent’s worth of coffee from the St. 
Andrew stall ; but his money could not hold out against 
the New York clamour for quarters and dimes, for food, 
for fares on the Elevated, for costly, despairing trips 
on the ferry to the hotels of Newark and Brooklyn, for 
the leech-like appetite of Paolo. He had by now 
gained a cabman’s knowledge of New York, knew the 
town from the Battery to the Harlem River, knew the 
terrible little black lanes off Rivington Street as well 
as Fifth Avenue. It was on Fifth Avenue that his 
bitterness came to light as he walked sullenly with 
Cordelli on one of the waiter’s rare days of freedom. 


BUD UNFOLDING 59 

“ Look,” said Kalisch, as he suddenly stopped, 
“ there is the octopus.” 

“ Where ” asked Cordelli quite genuinely. 

“ There, Carnegie House.” 

“ But why do you call it octopus ? He is a great 
man, Carnegie.” 

“ Oh,” sighed Kalisch, “ he acts according to his 
lights. But there, Cordelli, is his house. And there 
is Tiffany House, down south, and not far Vanderbilt 
House. Each of them one of the stars of the American 
flag.” 

“ You’re not going to talk Socialism? ” 

“ Call it what you like. There are the rich, Cordelli, 
and here are we. Here am I. What was I taught but 
to suffer? What can I do? The rich have all the 
money, and it has gathered round them like fat round 
a diseased heart. The fat will stop the heart one day, 
and perhaps all the body will perish because the dis- 
ease has not been cured.” 

“ But if this is true,” said Cordelli, “ can you cure 
it? ” The little man looked at Kalisch with interested 
dark eyes ; he was rather impressed. 

“ I do not know,” said Kalisch dully ; “ there is 
homoeopathy and there is operation.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” 

Kalisch shrugged his shoulders. Better than at 
Kassa or at Buda he knew what he meant, but he did 
not quite know it yet. Wealth lay upon him ds a 
nightmare on a sleeper. 

“ I can’t say. Perhaps I mean merely that I have 
left Paolo this morning, and that all I have is a dollar 
and two nickels.” 

“ Left Paolo ! ” Cordelli screamed. His thin face 
worked. The vertical wrinkles deepened. “ Left 


60 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


Paolo ! ” The waiter was really saying “ Left the 
second cousin of my aunt Maria.” It was awful, 
sacrilegious. “ But . . . but ...” he gasped. 
“ Where do you go to now.? ” And into this question 
crept a forlorn quality, as if he pictured Israel Kalisch 
as a sheep straying from the fold into the night. 

“ I think to a lodging-house I know in Rutgers 
Street. Fifteen cents a night, Cordelli.” 

“But . . . how will you live.? ” 

“ I may die, which is a way of earning a living for- 
ever. Play in the streets if the cops will let me. Oh, 
Cordelli, there are lots of ways of starving my inches 
for the sake of the instinct of self-preservation.” 

Cordelli was silent awhile, for he could find no solu- 
tion to Israel’s troubles. Then an, awful struggle took 
place in him ; after all he had invited Kalisch into this 
gr-rand country . . . but then dollars were dollars, 
and he had Carlotta to think of . . . but temporary 
help might save Israel. At last generosity won. 

“ Let me lend you ten dollars,” he whispered, not 
assured enough to speak aloud. 

“ You are a good friend, Cordelli,” said Kalisch 
after a pause. “ No.” 

“ Why .? Why not ? ” Cordelli’s generosity was 
now spurred into proper activity. 

“What is the use.? In two or three weeks it would 
be the same. No, Cordelli, let me despair. Despair 
is the father of courage. It is hunger makes million- 
aires, not small incomes ; just as liberal laws make 
effeminates, harsh laws make rebels, in other words, 
heroes ; and necessity makes resource. I am not going 
to die. The world’s too fine to be abandoned, and no 
trust controls the sunshine or the scented breath of 
flowers. I may starve and I may steal, I may go to 


BUD UNFOLDING 


61 


the penitentiary, but Fll live, Cordelli ; my need will be 
my strength. The time may come, old friend, when we 
are not as crabs in a bucket, trying to get on top, when 
we shall help one another instead of striking one an- 
other down. Meanwhile, and I think I’ll injure no man 
in so doing. I’ll live. Have I not lived nearly nineteen 
years ? ” 

Cordelli sighed. These general ideas had sapped 
his human impulse. After all ten dollars . . . fifty 
lire ... an enormous sum. So he contented him- 
self with pushing past Kalisch and paying his fare on 
the Elevated after treating him in a back street saloon 
to a glass of steam beer. And Kalisch was right, for 
he lived ; he lived somehow ten days in Rutgers Street, a 
unit in a dormitory tenanted by newspaper runners, 
hawkers, market labourers. It was one of these helped 
him to a day’s work at Gansevoort Market, where for 
fifty cents he worked six hours from midnight to morn- 
ing, loading carts with vegetables from the trucks. 
There, too, one night, when he had not fifteen cents, 
when the violin was in pawn for two dollars, Kalisch 
found some half-rotten turnips and crouched on the 
damp flagstones like an animal, eating with both hands. 


IV 

‘‘ Black hell to yer soul. Is it sleeping yez are, 
Dutchy ? ” 

Israel opened his eyes slowly as the heavy wet boot 
touched his side, looked up to the speaker’s face. It 
was not disagreeable, this freckled white face, with 
its fringe of reddish hair and choleric blue eyes. 

“ Naw,” he muttered. He was not asleep; he was 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


almost comatose with the cold of the night, for he 
had been sitting for three or four hours against a 
pile of cables and spars. Besides, he had eaten 
nothing since he had cashed the five-cent meal check 
a woman in black had thrust into his hand. 

“ Then give us a hand. I guess yer lookin’ for a 
bit o’ money.” 

Israel raised himself to his feet with the help of 
both hands and a heavy cable. He could hardly 
move; he was just conscious of Fulton Market, for 
he could not have analysed its details. He stood 
awkward in the red dawn in front of the fish-boat. 
Her brown sails were bloody with the morning light ; 
faint rosy shadows played over the silver mass of 
the fish which filled her hold and, in places, almost 
reached the edge of the bulwarks. He just under- 
stood that here was work and, nodding, took a step 
towards the boat. 

“ Ye wait for the basket,” said the reddish-haired 
man, “ an’ run it on the trolley to the car. Sam’s 
gone lame an’ us in a divil of a hurry.” 

Israel hardly understood him, so heavy was still 
upon him the coma of the night. But as the light 
increased and he could see better the four workers 
in the barge, knee-deep and slithering in the wet, 
silvery corpses, he discovered that like a machine he 
was doing his work, deftly catching the fifty-pound 
basket as it fell towards him from the hand crane, 
loading the trolley and running it to the truck which 
waited on a siding fifty feet away, swinging the 
basket to the stower, a surly mulatto, with whom for 
four hours he did not exchange a word. 

“ Aisy now, ye blackguard, or yez’ll feel the touch 
of me boot shure as me name’s Ganger Tim,” roared 


BUD UNFOLDING 63 

the reddish-haired man, as half-a-dozen mackerel 
slipped from a basket and fell into the dirt. 

“ Come down and do some of the pig’s work, 
Diitchy,” shouted one of the loaders, as he wiped his 
brow with a slimy hand bespattered with glittering 
scales. 

“ Don’t ye talk of pig’s work to him,” said the 
quiet voice of the other loader, “ it’d be against his 
religious conveections to do it.” 

There was a roar of merriment over the exposure 
of the Jew, but Israel nearly laughed with the others, 
so light was now his young heart at the thought of 
the night’s pay. He was running from the side of 
the boat to the truck, taking vague pride in his speed, 
in the precision with which he caught the basket in 
the air. His arms ached, his red hair was all matted 
with sweat, his hands covered with slime, but he could 
laugh now when one of the loafers, with a loud curse, 
slipped on a layer of fishes and fell head first into the 
sticky mass. Basket after basket was loaded; three 
trucks were filled, led off by the mulatto, who har- 
nessed to them two decrepit horses ; at last the brown 
wood bottom of the boat began to show through the 
piles of mackerel. Then it was seven, and Israel sat 
on the raised poop slowly eating coarse bread with 
almost nerveless hands. 

“ Have a cup o’ corfy,” said the loader who had 
exposed Kalisch’s race. “ Ye’re a rare good ’un for 
work, ye are.” 

“ Aye,” remarked the other loader, “ couldn’t keep 
up with him, could we, Tim? ” 

“ Yes, ye could, ye lazy divils, an’ well ye know 

it. . . .” 

‘‘ No, we couldn’t,” cried the first loader. ‘‘ I 


64i 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


don’t say that if the fish had froze a bit we couldn’t. 
Sticky they was.” 

“ Maybe ’e’s a good ’un an’ all for a green hand,” 
said Ganger Tim. He was a big man, his face wore 
a kindly smile and the blue eyes were no longer 
choleric. Kalisch knew himself to be near tears ; for 
the first time in his life he was earning praise. He 
munched the bread, drank scalding gulps of unsweet- 
ened coffee from the tin pannikin lent him by the 
loader, while he listened to the men’s talk. 

“ Sam still bad.?’ ” 

‘‘ Ye should see him. Twisted up like.” 

Can we git him to hospital, d’ye think? ” 

“ Naw,” said the mulatto, speaking for the first 
time. “ Sam’s dead.” 

“ What d’ye mean, ye black divil,” shouted Ganger 
Tim. “ Sam ain’t dead. Shure, wasn’t meself talkin’ 
to him, an’ it only half-an-hour gone ? ” He nodded 
towards the sheltered spot where the trucks had been. 

“ Dead,” repeated the mulatto, as he bit off a large 
chunk of bread and simultaneously gulped down half 
his pannikin of coffee. “ Didn’t ye see his hand as 
ye carried him out? ” 

“ What of it? ” asked one of the loaders. 

“ Shut it was, all but two fingers. One for heaven, 
one for hell. He’s chosen.” 

There was a roar of laughter in which Kalisch 
joined. But when Ganger Tim went to Sam with a 
mug of coffee he found him on his back, his short 
black beard sticking up and his prophetic hand 
closed. He had chosen. 

And thus it came about that Israel was made a 
member of Tim’s gang. It was a solid, friendly little 
gang, for Tim had constituted it some three years 


BUD UNFOLDING 


65 


back on the strength of having won a hundred dollars 
in a sweepstake when the Reliance beat the Shamrock, 
After some hesitation, caused by the consideration 
that a hundred dollars would buy more hundreds of 
bottles of beer or more gallons of whisky than he 
could work out, Tim had been induced by his com- 
petent Scandinavian wife to blossom from a dock 
labourer into a buyer of unloading contracts. Mrs. 
Tim knew that then or never was the time to make 
her man’s fortune, for labour was scarce then and 
contracts were fetching one dollar ninety a ton, say 
nineteen dollars a shift, which left about nine dollars 
for the contract buyer. And there was then no dan- 
ger that a contracting company would sweep the 
trade away: men were then so scarce and so erratic, 
above all so drunken, that personal influence alone 
could keep them at work; moveover, the rooted prej- 
udices of the fishing fleet were notorious : they 
weren’t going to ’ave no truck with no blarsted com- 
pany.” Not even probable economy could move 
them ; the skipper of the little Shusquamp would never 
have left her in the hands of some numbered stevedore. 
He liked to yawn good-night at Tim and his men and 
march off with his crew to the lanes of West Street 
where were their homes. In Tim’s hands no harm 
would come to the little Shusquamp, 

Thus, when Kalisch joined the gang, trade was still 
pretty good. True the dollar ninety rate had gone, 
fallen under a stress of contract competition to a 
dollar seventy, and then to a dollar forty a ton, but 
there was plenty of it, and Tim could be assured of 
a clear thirty dollars a week all the year round, after 
paying Jock and Tubby Tom their earnings or their 
minimum fourteen dollars, Kalisch and Hiram, the 


66 


UNTIL THE BAY BREAK 


mulatto, their eleven dollars. But it was terrible 
work, work which compressed within five to seven 
hours the labour agony of a ten-hour shift. It leapt 
with the tides from the freezing hours of dawn, when 
every spar and rope was clammy, to noon when a few 
minutes of feverish turning of the crane handle or of 
running with the trolley brought the men’s bodies 
into such sweat that moisture soaked through their 
shirts into their belts. Inside the seven hours, some- 
times reduced to five when the tide was low and the 
stalls of Fulton Market were dangerously bare, the 
ten tons of fish had to be packed into five hundred 
baskets, wheeled to the truck and lifted on. The first 
days were terrible for Israel. Five hundred times he 
unhooked the crane chain, a thousand times ran the 
distance between the wharf and the truck, five hun- 
dred times lifted with strained arms into Hiram’s 
grasp the dripping, slimy basket. After two hours’ 
work there was hardly any talk. Tim, Jock and 
Tubby Tom bent or knelt in the hold of the Slius- 
quamp, grasping painfully at the packed fish, while 
Hiram, as he stacked his baskets and every twenty to 
thirty minutes led off the old horses that dragged his 
truckload, merely grunted at intervals — 

“ Jiddy.” And if the wretched beasts strained in 
vain at the load, without another word he impartially 
kicked them in the belly. 

When the hours numbered four sensation began tG 
abandon Israel’s arms ; the shooting pains in his 
shoulder-blades turned to a dull ache which was by 
contrast comfort; he had at times to stop and, by 
opening wide his eyes, to unglue his sweat-sodden eye- 
lashes. Then his legs began to tremble, to stiffen, 
then again to tremble, his hands to close on things 


BUD UNFOLDING 


67 


without feeling them, his mouth to twist into a comical 
triangle. But the last basket was somehow shipped 
and coffee hastily boiled in the Shusquamp^s little 
caboose; by degrees Israel was able to open his hands, 
wide like starfishes, for the muscles were not yet under 
his control and were affected by irrepressible twitch- 
ings. He was happy in those moments, for he had 
earned his two dollars. Then only could he find 
energy to talk. 

“ It’d vex a saint to live like us,” Tim remarked one 
day. “ Slave ye soul out for the price of four fills 
of ye belly, an’ it’s as poor yez’d be ag’in in the morn- 
ing if it wasn’t destroyed ye were with the work.” 

“You talk,” said Jack sardonically, “ Jiminy 
Christmas, don’t we all know ye bank sixty dollars a 
week.” 

“ That’s a dirty black lie, and ye know it, Jock,” 
shouted Tim, as he waved his pannikin of scalding 
coffee near the loader’s face. “ Maybe it’s a profit 
ye’d say there was for me on a dollar forty touch, 
with five cents on the basket, an’ all the good gold 
I’m paying ye, the way I’m destroyed getting con- 
tracts for the ugly liar the likes of ye.” 

“ Ugly liar yourself,” said Jock half angrily. Any 
man but genial Tim who had called Jock a liar would 
have felt his fist, but the quiet, fair Scotch-American 
with the grey eyes and the almost lipless, shaven 
mouth made allowances for “ a wretched Irishman 
that’d orter bin a cop.” 

“ Yes, ’tis an ugly liar ye are, Tim, makin’ a poor 
mouth,” added Tubby Tom. “Who’s got a plot up 
in Harlem ready to have a house run up? Roose- 
velt? ” 

“ Tubby,” shouted Tim, his face flushing to the 


68 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


eyes, . Tubby.” He could say no more. That 

Harlem plot, which his wife had made him buy, was 4 
an awful evidence of his growing wealth; the gang 
were not envious, they liked him too much, but they 
loved to tease him. 

“One and a half acres,” said Jock solemnly. 

“ Blatherun skite ! ” 

“ An’ let to a graziier for two dollars a week,” added 
Tubby Tom. 

“ Ah, it’s good money. Tubby, Jiminy Christmas, 
that it is.” 

“ Hear he’s going to share out a twenty dollar bill, 
Jock, when they’ve quit building.” 

“ Saints of glory,” screamed Tim, “ it’s not much 
sharing out there’ll be, savin’ the doctor and the 
undertaker’ll do it, an’ me stretched under me own 
ground.” 

And so the discussion would go on while Hiram 
sat by and sulkily smoked his clay pipe, and Israel 
occasionally put in a word. They liked the young 
Dutchy who never shirked his share of the work, even 
though his ideas struck them as singular. Some two 
months after Kalisch’s entry into the gang the ques- 
tion of the Trade Union had arisen; an emissary had 
disturbed the gang in the midst of loading, and had 
been chased off the wharf by Tim, who ferociously 
waved a boat-hook and called for his blood in the name 
of the saints. 

“ They’ll get no money of mine,” said Jock later in 
the day, “ much use a union is to me. Jiminy Christ- 
mas, what for d’ye think I’ll pay ten cents a week?” 

“ To keep a seccertry,” said Tubby, his fat, round 
face as sarcastic as it could be. 

“ To make trouble when there ain’t none, to pay 


BUD UNFOLDING 69 

the doctor when ye ain’t sick and to give ye a pension 
when yer dead.” 

All had laughed at Jock’s summing up except 
Kalisch. 

“ I think you are wrong,” he said in the precise 
book American he was now fast acquiring. “ Why 
do you think you get a dollar forty a ton, Tim ? ” 

“ Show us the man ’ud do it for less? ” 

“ That’s what the union will do, Tim, prevent 
anybody from doing it for less. Fix the rate and 
strike if anybody undercuts.” 

“ Fine talk enough. Tenderfoot. Who’s goin’ to 
undercut? ” 

Jock, Tubby, anybody else who can save a hun- 
dred dollars. And a hundred men may do likewise.” 

“What’s that, Dutchy? ” asked Tim. His voice 
was angry, but he looked nervous ; he had before then 
been upset by Kalisch’s economics. 

“ I say you will undercut. Here you get a dollar 
forty a ton. Another man begins to take contracts 
to-morrow. That’s all right. And another. And 
that’s all right. But at last there’ll be more want 
contracts than there are contracts, and then what? ” 

“ Well, what ? ” said Tubby. His eyes began to 
bulge from his round face. 

“ Down goes the contract to a dollar thirty, to a 
dollar twenty, to a dollar ...” 

“ Blather.” 

“Blather? What does that mean?” Kalisch 
made a mental note of the confused explanation he 
received and returned to the charge. “ Well, if I am 
not right, why did the contract come down from one 
ninety to one seventy? and to one forty? ” There was 
no reply. Jack pressed his thin lips together and said 


70 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


nothing, while Tubby shifted his position and looked 
at Tim as if to ask him to settle the point. Hiram 
smoked on, his eyes fixed on a dinghy that bobbed up 
and down on the leaden river, as if he despised the 
lot of them. 

“ You cannot say,” Kalisch went on. There was 
triumph in his great blue eyes and a smile on his full 
red mouth. The contracts went down because more 
men came, because there was less rushing to the West, 
because more stayed here and all had to live. And 
it’ll continue if the union don’t stop it. Indeed, if 
the union likes it can put the rate to two dollars.” 

“What’s that yer saying.?” cried Tim. “How.?” 

“ Strike. Let the fish rot.” 

“ Hum,” J ock remarked, “ seems all right. But 
contracts don’t matter to me.” 

“ Oh yes, they do. You’ll go to the poorhouse be- 
fore Tim. When they’ve got the contract down 
Tim’ll put you down. Eh, Tim .? ” 

“ D’ye take me for a painted savage.? ” 

“ Will you pay me two dollars a shift on a dollar 
contract.? ” 

“ No, but ...” 

“ Well, there you are. Cut one another’s throats 
and bleed to death. Or combine and get the full value 
of your labour.” 

“ What’s the full value ? ” asked Tubby Tom, 
raising his eyebrows in puzzled fashion. 

“ The difference between the cost of catching the 
fish and the price the young lady pays the store.” 

“Oh, I say,” Jock interjected, “ Jiminy Christmas, 
that’s tall. There’s the profits to think of, the rail- 
way, the market, the wholesale man, an’ the retail 
man, an’ . . 


BUD UNFOLDING 


71 


“ And the rest of the leeches,” said Kalisch softly. 
‘‘My poor Jock! don’t you know the Shusquamp^s 
lucky if she gets a cent for two mackerel.? And that 
you can’t buy one fish under eight cents up in Clare- 
mont.? ” 

“ Where’s the rest.? ” 

“ Stolen. Stolen in rent by the landlords of the 
shops, by the shareholders of the railway, by the 
wholesale man or the retail man, for one of them’s 
useless, by the owners of the Shusquamp, by the share- 
holders of the ice company, by New York City’s 
market authority, by everybody who’s doing no work 
and taking something for nothing. That’s why I’ve 
joined the union; it’s fighting we’ll have to do, so 
let’s fight all together; it’s kill or be killed, so let the 
good ones join and kill the bad ones; it’s our due or 
their privileges, so let’s have our rights.” 

Tubby Tom sat thoughtful, his fat face pursed up 
into worried folds ; Tim stood by him, his unseeing 
eyes directed to Kalisch’s waistcoat as he scratched 
his reddish whiskers. 

“ Jiminy Christmas,” Jock remarked as a full stop. 

Hiram said nothing. His olive face was vacant, 
his splendid black eyes were fixed on the smoke that 
rose from his pipe into the air. At last the mulatto 
spoke in a soft, crooning, almost liquid voice — 

“ Look, three gulls have three times circled a ship 
with a red sail. Each carries in its beak three weeks 
of evil for those who see.” 


V 

Israel stood by a heap of spars, Tim and the others 
lay about his feet. They were waiting for the Shus- 


72 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


quamp, now twenty minutes overdue, and it was mid- 
night. In the light of the tall oil lamp Israel, his 
violin tucked under his chin, improvised soft, slow 
airs; the gang was surly, for every minute’s delay 
meant haste when the boat landed, body-racking toil, 
but Israel soothed them a little. Tim looked up at 
him, this strange figure in the flowing tie and the 
enormous, soiled, velvet trousers ; now he swayed 
slowly with the rhythm, his blue eyes were like dark 
caverns, his hair like metal faintly lit in the night. 
And his red mouth was set and serious under his 
heavy, fleshy nose. 

“ Ye played better last night,” said Jock plain- 
tively. 

“ Yes, that was the stuff,” said Tim, with a sudden 
eagerness. “ More like the breeze that used to cry 
in the old thatch at home, an’ me a lad thinkin’ the 
world was all gay and aisy. An’ here we are, an’ the 
divil knows what trouble is cornin’ on us next. Bhoys, 
there’s great magic in an old fiddle: if Kalisch here 
didn’t make me think I was bearin’ the birds again 
that used to twitter by me window, tellin’ me it was 
a great man I’d be some day an’ a great fortune I’d 
have for meself.” 

‘‘ I never heard birds twitter like that,” said 
Kalisch. But as he played he thought he saw another 
land, a land he had never seen. Tall palm trees 
seemed to sway about him, butterflies and birds to 
sweep about his brow in perpetual circles, brilliant 
like fireflies. There was heat upon his brow as he 
played, and a smell as of burning scented wood in his 
nostrils. For him the violin was singing the song 
of his soul — - 


BUD UNFOLDING 


73 


. I have stained my palms with Cochineal 
And crushed myrrh upon my brow, 

For the breathing and the savour of thy lips. 
With my blood I have watered the plant 
That grows in a pot of brass, 

I have plucked the flower from the Tree, 
Warrior, to lighten thy wilderness. . . 

Isral swung from side to side, his fingers securely 
pressing the strings, while in long, languorous sweeps 
his right arm slowly drew the bow across them. Be- 
yond the black, almost unruffled Hudson he could see 
the fiaring masses of the Pennsylvania and Erie sta- 
tions, the darker and light-spangled blocks of Jersey 
City and Hoboken. But over all a charm had been 
cast, and Israel, dragged back through the night of 
ages, was playing now as maybe did his ancestor 
before David. All the East was in his hands, its 
rhythm in his ears, its obscure, sensuous lure in his 
soul. 

**...! have roped the stallion in the field. 

With cords of silk have I dressed his mane. 

His breath is as the burning cloud 
That rises from the slaughtered kine. 

Warrior, he waits by thy tent of hides. 

Athirst for the land of honey. 

Where milk flows from the sacred Rock, 

And the maids are hewn of alabaster. . . 

The sensuous dream was upon him, blinding him, 
drawing down his eyelids over his eyes ; he no longer 
improvised, but gave his hands into those of the dead, 
who cried out through the strings their old, wild pas- 
sion. He did not see coming upon the black waters 
of the Hudson a small shape with a light in its 


74 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


rigging, nor did he notice the stir among the men at 
his feet as they rose and ran to the water’s edge. 
When he heard their voices, suddenly the dead hands 
loosed his, left him open-eyed and slowly returning to 
his own times. The Shusquamp had moored. The 
shamefaced skipper was talking to Tim who, for 
some reason, seemed dazed. 

“ One twenty,” he repeated, “ one twenty ...” 

“ I tell ye it’s the same everywhere, Tim,” said the 
aggrieved voice of the skipper. “We came together 
to-day and agreed ...” 

“Agreed, did ye.^^ ” shouted Tim suddenly, “listen 
to that, bhoys, listen to that.” 

“ Well, what the hen-feather’s the matter with 
that.?” snarled the skipper. 

“ It’s ruination for us, bhoys,” cried Tim, “ from 
one dollar ninety to one dollar seventy, to one dollar 
forty, and now yez tell me it’s one twenty. It’s the 
truth ye were tellin, Dutchy . . . it’s great men 

yez are . . . it’s fine coats ye’ll be buying with the 
poor man’s money.” 

“ Now, Tim,” said the skipper sharply, “ one twenty 
like the rest of the port. I can’t stay here talking 
till the mouth drops off me. D’ye deal.? ” 

“ No.” 

“ It’s the same everywhere, Tim, we’re agreed.” 

“ Is the port agreed? ” 

“ Possibly not. We’ll see.” 

“ Ah ! ” shouted Tim. Then he turned towards the 
gang, “ Time for us to be joinin’ the union.” 


BUD UNFOLDING 


75 


VI 

Within twelve hours the battle had begun. The 
third cut in the contract price, the fall below the 
dollar forty which was looked upon as the minimum 
on which the contractor could face the risk of short 
cargoes and keep his gang employed, was taken up as 
a challenge. With two or three exceptions every 
gang struck on the spot, whether composed of union 
or non-union men. Then it appeared that the con- 
certed attack on the dockers’ rates was more than a 
conspiracy of commodores, for simultaneously the 
dock companies, which employed men direct on general 
goods, cut every day-rate ten cents in the dollar and 
every piece-rate one to three cents in the quarter. A 
threatened general strike in the morning was immedi- 
ately followed by a lock-out, and Israel found himself 
one of a crowd of several thousand men who were 
being driven off West Street into the back lanes of 
the Bowery. There was not yet much disorder, and 
the police had clubbed nobody ; so far the mob was not 
aggressive, it was slow and sullen, it tended to clot at 
street corners where intelligent-looking, stout young 
men, mostly wearing spectacles and speaking quickly 
with a German accent, were distributing leaflets and 
noting names for membership of the union. 

Tim’s gang had joined with him, cheerfully paying 
their ten cents for the card though they knew that 
this did not entitle them to strike pay, and now, keep- 
ing well together, all of them except Hiram, who had 
said not a word, but merely nodded to Tim as 
he left the wharf, were making for Battery Park, 
where a monster demonstration was to be held under 
the suspicious eyes of the police. The dockers were 


76 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


an object of interest to the New Yorkers as they went 
south along avenues in groups of half-a-dozen or a 
dozen. They were rather frightening, these big men 
with the heavy boots, the thick, shaven jowls or more 
terrible beards ; all went silently, except a few couples 
who had mortgaged their strike pay in the Bowery 
saloons; in places, especially in Fourth and Fifth 
Avenue, the police suddenly rushed through groups 
that were becoming too large, cut them in two and 
sharply forced them down the side streets. 

“ My,” remarked a girl outside a dry-goods store > 
in Sixteenth Street, “ ain’t they fine.” 

“ You wait,” said her spruce man with the blue 
serge, hard-boxed shoulders, “ you wait a minute. 
They’ll be as fine as a forgotten pheasant when the 
cook opens the larder. That union ain’t got no 
spunk.” 

“ Wal,” said the girl, with a spirited air, as she 
tossed an elaborate edifice of yellow curls, “ the men 
hev got spunk, anyhow, Henry. Hev you got spunk 
enough to strike for an extry two dollars a week, 
Henry.? an’ the prize a ticket for you an’ me at the 
parson’s.? ” 

“ You leave business to me, kid,” said Henry con- 
fidently, as he took her arm and lead her away, at once 
subjugated by his commercial authority, “ an’ you 
come along an’ let me buy you some candies.” 

While the American girl was spunkily bullied and 
spunkily bribed, as is the way her kind are handled, 
the crowd, which thickened round Tim’s gang as the 
area of convergence on Battery Park grew less, was 
becoming rowdier, breaking at times into a rhythmic 
song Kalisch had never heard before. He could 
hardly catch the words, and when told that it was 


BUD UNFOLDING 


77 


The Red Flag, drew no definite conclusion therefrom 
except that it seemed to annoy the police, for a couple 
of lusty singers were arrested a few yards away. 
There was a brief struggle in which a man was 
clubbed, but at once the intelligent-looking young men 
in spectacles interfered, drove the angry dockers 
away by force. Now they were pervading the crowd 
and counselling moderation. One of them tackled 
Tim’s gang. 

“ Now, boys,” he said, as he walked with them, “ no 
larks.” He was a stout young man with a skin like 
milk, bad teeth and, behind his spectacles, prominent, 
short-sighted blue eyes. He was resolute, capable. 

“ Understand,” he said, “ we must keep order. No 
violence. No attacks on the police. No drink. You 
must not give them a chance to put you in the 
wrong.” 

“ Blazes,” shouted Tim, as he turned his angry blue 
eyes on the young man, “ an’ what’s this? a parson? ” 

“ I am Kolden, sub-district organiser of the Dockers’ 
Union. Are you a member? If so, show me your 
card.” 

Quickly the German inspected their cards, which 
all four showed him with pride, as if they played an 
ace in the industrial game. At once he noted that 
Kalisch’s card was dated nearly two months back ; to 
him at once he delegated leadership. 

“ Now listen to me, comrade Kalisch; we are in for 
a big fight. Seventy thousand men are out, and yes- 
terday no more than thirty-one thousand were mem- 
bers of the union. To-night many more will have 
joined, but many will not.” 

“ Lacking the ten cents,” said Jock ; “ Jiminy 
Christmas, why don’t ye let ’em off? ” 


78 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


“ How can we give you strike pay without money ? ” 
asked Kolden. There was no contempt in his blue 
eyes as he answered the stupid question; he was an 
organiser and had lost his illusions. Then he turned 
again to Kalisch. 

« It is for you, members of the union, to keep them 
quiet. Strike . . . but listen,” 

“Yes,” said Kalisch; then slowly, “Why not strike 
with the fist? ” 

“ That is what Themistocles meant,” said Kolden ; 
“ but it does not pay to strike with fists, for the police 
strike with clubs. Understand, comrade, we must 
respect the law. Yes,” he added quickly, as Tim 
opened his mouth to protest, “ we must. Then the 
law cannot hurt us, and when we have won we can 
make another law.” 

“ The law . . . what’s the law done for me? ” 

asked Tubby Tom ferociously. 

“ Nothing. Kept you under. But it’s strong, 
comrade, don’t fight it. Starve it. But I’ve no time. 
Comrade Kalisch, remember: if there is a disturbance, 
you bet your mother’s Sunday hat the cops ’ll have 
me and the committee in Blackwell’s Island in an hour, 
and without leaders you’re done. You know Black- 
well? ” 

“ Aye,” said Jock sulkily. 

“ Well, remember. No organisers, no organisation, 
no strike pay, no meetings. An’ you’re plumb beat. 
So long.” 

The gang turned south, while Kolden ran up to an- 
other group to teach it moderation. It was a terrible 
task, this of the union organisers, for as the press 
grew greater past Rector Street and in Battery Place, 
it was evident that the men were angry ; as they 


BUD UNFOLDING 


79 


jostled one another they seemed to gain an electric 
kind of savagery from the contact. They tended to 
cluster in a threatening manner about the patrol 
wagons filled with policemen. In Battery Park itself 
the crowd was at its worst ; it did not talk much, it 
clotted continually into groups or made, across the 
flower-beds, little rushes which the police hesitated to 
repress. A big police officer, whom Kalisch heard 
called Captain O’Connor, held hurried conferences 
with the ever-present, neat union officials. And the 
crowd seemed to increase, to pour in in thousands 
through the park gates from the Elevated and Broad- 
way Tunnel stations. It numbered others than 
dockers, many night-shift railway-men and workmen 
taking a day off to express sympathy with their fel- 
lows, and women, some of whom clearly looked upon 
the demonstration as a picnic, for they carried string 
bags showing greasy newspaper-wrapped parcels and 
the necks of beer-bottles. The warmth of May was 
over them; the powerful sun caused an emanation of 
sweat and dirt to rise from the crowd. The surge 
of the people drove the gang towards an empty plat- 
form. 

“ Stick together, bhoys,” Tim panted, as he linked 
his arm in Kalisch’s “ or we’re done.” The four hur- 
riedly joined arms, then were whirled forward, com- 
ing to a dead stop against the wall of backs. 

“ Taking their time,” said Jock sardonically, 
“ lunching at Delmonico’s.” 

“ It’s maybe us’ll be lunching there, when we’ve 
beaten ’em,” replied Tim. 

“ You bet we will.” An American had turned 
round to speak to him. 

‘‘ Or there’ll be a warm time in the old town to- 


80 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


night. . . . By crimes, we’ll have Manhattan in the 
Hudson. ...” Confused cries rose around them. 
There was a scream. 

‘‘ Stand away,” cried Kalisch, ‘‘ you’re hurting the 
girl.” The scream had come from a short, plump 
young woman who was pressed against him. “ W ait 
a minute, missie.” With one arm he made a small 
gap in the crowd; the girl slipped into it, held to 
his other arm. 

“ Danke schon” she murmured faintly. 

But before Kalisch could express his delight at 
hearing German a bugle was blown and, on each of 
the fifteen platforms, a group suddenly appeared. 
On their own platform were three neat men, all of 
them foreign in type, and already one of them was 
speaking in slow, grammatical English, not American. 
Kalisch lost the first sentences, for he was still en- 
gaged in restoring the girl. 

“ My name is Augusta,” she murmured ; “ oh, I 
feel so ill.” 

“ . . . the wrongs which you have suffered and 
will suffer if you do not keep faith with one another 
...” boomed the big voice in its careful phrasing. 
“ . . .In union and solidarity you will find strength ; 
in resistance and in courage you will find vic- 
tory. ...” 

“ You will be better soon,” said Kalisch. 

“ Leave yer canoodling,” cried Tubby Tom, as he 
grinned fatly. 

“ . . . Hold together. Hang together or, Ben- 
jamin Franklin has told you so, you will all hang 
separately. If you do not hold together your wages 
will be cut again. Do you know how much the aver- 
age dividend of the West Side companies is.? ” 


BUD UNFOLDING 81 

“ A thousand per cent.,” shouted a voice, and there 
was a roar of laughter. 

“ Fourteen and a half per cent.,” said the orator 
smoothly. “ Enough to double the wages which they 
now wish to reduce.” 

For nearly a minute the speaker had to stop, his 
voice drowned in the confused roar. Kalisch held the 
girl fast, blinded by the dust, deafened by the cries 
of rage. But the excitement gained him, he forgot 
the girl, turned towards the platform. Then he saw 
that the speaker was a tall, burly German with up- 
right fair hair, a yellow moustache; from his jowl 
depended a dewlap; from hair to chin a scar ran 
across his face. He was speaking again now, quiet, 
unmoved, reading out endless statistics which showed 
how the dockers of London, Hamburg, Antwerp, had 
fared at their masters’ hands. 

“ They may spend a dollar a second, while your 
pay is less than that of a footman. Your food would 
be scorned by Vanderbilt’s dog, while at Sherry’s they 
ate on horseback for a freak and for ten thousand 
dollars. Your girls go about the streets in your 
worn-out boots, while your masters’ daughters are too 
delicate to tread the stones of Fifth Avenue. How 
long, comrades, how long.?^ ” 

Again the orator surveyed unemotionally this roar- 
ing crowd he was lashing into rebellion. Then he 
quickly descended to details. 

Hold together, contractors, for the dollar forty 
rate. Hold together, men, for the old time-rate and 
the old piece-rate. Hold together, and we’ll give you 
all you want ; fall apart and you are lost. Hold to- 
gether, hold together, say I . . . E Pluribus 
Unum'* 




UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


There was a roar of cheers, amongst which filtered 
a few hisses, as the American coat-of~arms was 
blazoned on the red flag. 

“ Dutchy,” said Jock, rather sulkily. “ Jiminy 
Christmas, can’t they put on an American?” 

“Blit who’s he?” Tubby Tom persisted. 

“ Warsch,” said an American docker, turning 
towards him, “ furrier. He’ll tell you he’s an agita- 
tor if ye ask him.” 

Kalisch felt drawn to this worker in a magic pro- 
fession. The word agitator was great. 

“ Agitator,” he muttered, “ that’s fine.” 

“ Stirring up trouble,” snarled Jock, compressing 
his thin mouth. 

“ There is trouble,” said Kalisch, “ it needs no 
stirring up. Life itself is like a wound; the agitator 
makes you cry out when he touches it . . . then you 
go to a doctor.” 

“ True,” said an old man in jersey and cloth cap, 
“ true.” 

A few heads turned towards Kalisch, for Warsch 
had stood down and the second speaker was hardly 
audible. 

“ There is beauty round you, but not in you. The 
beauty you make is for others, the ugliness is for you. 
Poverty is yours and uncertainty, and . . .” 
Kalisch stumbled, short of English words. 

“. . . Oppression,” said a voice. 

“ Yes, oppression,” said Kalisch. “ But it is be- 
cause you choose, because you fight one another and 
not your masters, because you think yourselves weak 
when you are strong. There is no virtue except in 
thinking, no reality save in your own minds . . . 
you can make the world what you choose by dreaming 


BUD UNFOLDING 


83 


a dream, then by uniting to accomplish it . . 

Soon silence reigned around this boy with the red 
hair, whose blue eyes did not seem to see his audience. 
They listened, Augusta a little awed, Jock half scepti- 
cal, Tubby Tom stupidly impressed, Tim almost in 
tears because the sentences were rhythmic, and a score 
of neighbours. For almost an hour Kalisch spoke of 
life, of beauty as it might appear, in a soft, crooning 
voice; he spoke long after the fighting resolution had 
been passed at the fifteen platforms, and the air was 
cooler when at last he said — 

‘‘ In your hands is your material life, as in your 
minds is the life of your soul. All things are yours 
if you will give yourself the liberty to take them.” 

“ The cops,” cried out one of the Americans. 

Captain O’Connor and his men were clearing the 
park now, but they did not have to use their clubs. 

“ Come,” said Kalisch. 

And all of them, Augusta nearest to him, followed. 


CHAPTER IV 


AUGUSTA 

I 

Hiram, the mulatto, had been right. The three gulls 
which had three times circled the ship with the red 
sail had brought in their beaks three times three weeks 
of evil for those who saw them. For nine weeks the 
great dock strike held New York, spread to Boston, 
Philadelphia and Charleston. Unaccountably San 
Francisco and the West “ ratted,” while an outbreak 
at New Orleans, begun in characteristic style by the 
sack of two warehouses, collapsed in four days ; six 
men were killed and a hundred injured in a riot where 
the police freely used their clubs, and the South 
sleepily settled down to the reduced rates. To the 
very end San Francisco remained apart; it was 
rumoured that a disagreement between the leaders of 
branches was the cause of this defection: alone, there- 
fore, the East coast fought its battle. It was a ter- 
rible battle, for there were but sixteen dollars a mem- 
ber in the union treasury, from which occasional doles 
were subtracted to hearten the non-union men. 
Night and day the officials were busy trying to obtain 
conferences with the masters, who refused to meet 
them, to interest the papers, all of which were not hos- 
tile, to collect funds from other unions, to involve in 
the strike the European ports whence the American 
lines started. But there was no help, save a few 
thousand dollars from London and Antwerp ; the 
strike pay, which had, in a spirit of bluff, be- 

84 


BUD UNFOLDING 


85 


gan at four dollars, sank in the third week to three. 

“ It’s all up,” said Tubby Tom, as he moodily 
walked with Jock and Kalisch by the side of Harlem 
Pool. 

“ Hold together,” said Kalisch. “ Are we not all 
brothers in hunger? ” 

The three men stood silently by the side of the 
Pool, two of them quite blind to anything but their 
need, the third forgetful of it for a moment as he 
looked out over the purple water. On his left he 
could see a rustic bridge over which was walking a 
woman with a red parasol, round and bright as a 
danger signal; on his right a tumbled mass of rocks 
over which slowly fell a vertical sheet of glittering 
water; then great beeches which almost blotted out 
the opposite shore, its brilliant white sand and its 
dark background of heavy trees. The scene struck 
this third man, Kalisch, as almost tropical; the weight 
of June was in the air, its load of scents, maple, young 
leaf, bursting flowers about him. The woman with 
the parasol had gone, and none but the three remained 
to watch two thrushes dig nervously in the sand. 

‘‘Look,” said Kalisch, “is it not beautiful? Is it 
not hot? ” 

“ Hot as hell,” growled Jock. He was not of the 
East. “ I ain’t surprised, though, it’s hell we’re in, 
sure enough . . . thanks to you agitators.” 

“We?” asked Kalisch, amazed. “Who’s we?” 

“ You, you all. The union lot. What d’^^e want 
to strike for? We could ha’ done on a dollar twenty; 
Jiminy Christmas, it ain’t a twenty cent cut’d have 
done Tim out of his plot at Harlem.” The grey eyes 
were full of malice, the thin lips compressed. The 
voice was hissing. “ It’s a do, I tell ye. A do for 


86 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


the pelfing of Tim and the rest. A do like any do 
the companies pelf on. And, Jiminy Christmas, the 
union lot live on it. ...” 

“And die on it,” said Kalisch. His great blue eyes 
were sorrowful now. 

“ Die ? Serve ’em right. Let ’em all die, an’ 
honest men’ll keep their widders. It’s work we want, 
work.” 

“ Aye,” said Tubby Tom, “ that’s true.” 

“ Tubby Tom,” said Kalisch, “ you’re a fool. And 
you know it. The strike was called to show the mas- 
ters we couldn’t be pressed too hard. If we hadn’t 
struck they’d have cut us again.” 

“What’s the good of a strike if ye starve.?” asked 
Tubby Tom angrily, “ an’ don’t ye call me a fool or 
Tubby . . . it’s not much more ‘ Tubby ’ there’ll 
be about me than a trolley-post in a week if I can’t 
get a feed.” 

“ We’re starving,” growled Jock. 

“ You’re not starving,” said Kalisch. “ You’ve 
had the JournaVs free lunch and been to another 
charity-joint, and Tim gave ye ten cents an hour ago. 
Drunk it.? ” 

“Well.? What if a’ did? Jiminy Christmas, if a 
man can’t liquor up in these times he’ll have no 
spirit.” 

“ You want spirit, not spirits.” 

“ Oh, put the lid on, ’stead of lecturing like a dime 
crow ...” 

“ We’ve got it up to the eyes. Cheese it, I says, 
this ain’t a religious joint. ...” 

“ Listen,” shouted Kalisch so loud that recrimi- 
nation ceased. He faced them both: Jock, who was 
as pale as if he were about to faint, his eyes small 


BUD UNFOLDING 


87 


under his wrinkled eyelids ; and Tubby Tom, red and 
heaving as a turkey cock. “ Listen you . . . you 

children. What’s going to happen if the strike 
breaks.^ You go back, take your two an’ a quarter 
. . . next month it’s two dollars . . . then one 
an’ three-quarters . . . you strike, you’re beat 

again, for masters won’t care for . . . for . . . 

for chowder-headed clams like you . . . then down 

you go to a dollar an’ a half, down to ten cent touches, 

down to a day’s work a week with Chinese and Dagos 
undercutting you, down to the poor-house, and if 
you’re tired of down, and steal, up to the Peniten- 
tiary.” 

With flaming eyes, red hair a-toss on the wind, 
Israel fought for the loyalty of the gang; his voice 
rose, rose, broke with excitement, his hands waved 
Jewish in the air, his phrases passed from dock rates 
to smiles of flowers and antelopes. “ Hold together,” 
he gasped, and his voice was choked, his eyes filmy 
with tears, “ hold together wherever you go, bound, 
if you must by policy, if you can by love. Thus only 
can you be saved.” 

“ Aye,” said Tubby Tom at length, as he wiped 
his brow with his sleeve, “ that’s true.” 

But Jock said nothing. His thin mouth had fixed 
into a sneer. Fine words wasn’t as good as even two 
an’ a quarter. 


II 

Augusta Kessel had become something of a person- 
age in Israel’s life. The sturdy German girl had 
adopted in round-eyed worship the young apostle who 
had befriended her in Battery Park. She had fol- 


88 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


lowed him to the lodging-house, learned his name, 
watched for him at the grimy door as soon as she 
could get away from Cadden’s pickle factory on Tenth 
Street. Kalisch had accepted her adoration with a 
coolness that half delighted, half nettled her. He 
liked the sympathy her stupid young mind gave him; 
though pretty enough, pretty as are young things, 
she did not preoccupy him. He was usually too 
thoughtful to observe that Augusta was rather fine 
in her bovine, German way. She was short, sturdy, 
thick-shouldered and broad-hipped: her red and blue 
blouse (for Germany and its colours were dear to 
her), her plaid skirt, hung well on her firm figure. 
There was no animation in her china-blue eyes, her 
broad but red mouth; she liked to watch Kalisch as 
a spectacle, to feel honoured by a glance. When he 
looked at her her movements would gain a little fever, 
she would pat her yellow hair, pout her lips, wrinkle 
her little snub nose as she smiled. 

“Why do you come with me?” asked Kalisch one 
night, as together they walked slowly along the 
Bowery. “ Aren’t those dime museums better sport 
for you and your schatz than walking with me?” 

“ I have no schatz,^^ said the girl roughly. As 
he passed a saloon he could see her cheeks dark red. 
“ I want no schatz ... I hate men.” 

“ Oh? You should hate nobody. All men are fine, 
except a very few.” 

“ Can that be? ” Augusta stopped in the road. 
Abstract views fascinated her, though she did not 
always understand them. If Hegel had fallen into 
her hands she would have read him from end to end 
with unconscious and uncomprehending delight. Her 
German mind went out to all speculations. 


BUD UNFOLDING 


89 


‘‘ Yes. All. Nearly all. Some have in their hearts 
a God, others but an angel. Yet all but a few have 
heard at least the beating of an angePs wings. They 
go, these men, with rags upon their bodies and despair 
in their hearts, to struggle with the few others, in whose 
spirit is the devil’s own.” 

“ Ah. . . .” She had sighed, soothed by the rolling 
words. 

“ It is a bitter thing, but those others must be de- 
feated in battle. If they threaten our bread, we must 
threaten their dinners at Sherry’s ; if they evict us from 
our tenements in the Bowery we must endanger their 
Fifth Avenue rents. We’re like microbes desperately 
struggling in a drop of water.” 

Meekly Augusta followed him, receiving a gospel. 
In her eyes this young man was heroic as well as beau- 
tiful ; but above all he was beautiful, this sturdy youth, 
and the copper glow of his red hair was a continual 
lure ; she wanted to seize it with both hands, bury them 
in it, feel between her fingers the silky oiliness of each 
hair. She wanted to worship him, to follow and serve 
him. 

Within four weeks of their meeting she found to her 
delight that she could help him. Israel had eight dol- 
lars in his pocket when the strike was called ; four weeks 
lodging had absorbed four dollars and twenty cents ; for 
two weeks he had lived on a quarter a day, a prodigy of 
economy achieved only by eating once a day sliced cold 
meat bought at a Kosher cookshop off Grand Street. 
This left him two cents a day for the particularly vile 
kind of cigarette he had to affect, locally known as 
‘‘ casses ” (cabbage-stumps and sweepings). Two dol- 
lars from the union and two dollars from Tim had kept 
him another two weeks. Now the union was almost 


90 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


bankrupt, and could not give what amounted to charity 
to one who was not entitled to strike pay ; Tim, who had 
nobly helped both Tubby Tom and Jock, would do no 
more. That morning he had given each of his gang a 
dime. Tim had a grievance: the white men alone had 
come down upon him, for Hiram was making a living as 
a shoeblack in Battery Park ; though American enough 
to feel that this was not white man’s work, he nursed 
his grievance. Ten cents was all he could give. 

The German girl’s strong red hand was extended on 
a Sunday afternoon in Central Park. It was nearly 
six o’clock, and already the sun was beginning to sink 
behind the Obelisk, bathing with flame one side of the 
stone and picking out in black every leaf of the luxu- 
riant trees. Israel and Augusta sat silently on a stone 
seat, the man half indifferently watching the open vic- 
torias and high-wheeled buggies which slowly wandered 
“ up town ” towards dinner, clubs, white shirts. The 
girl looked neither at the rich folk nor at the flushing 
sky : her eyes were fixed on Israel’s face, now reposeful 
in its abstraction, coloured by the reflection of the sun 
as a rose in full bloom. His drooping eyelids caused 
a shadow to lie over his cheeks from his long eyelashes ; 
his heaviness of nose and mouth seemed magnificent ; she 
thought of a lion at rest when she looked at the fine 
red moustache, the heavy copper crest. Without con- 
scious intention she laid her hand upon his arm. 

“ Well.? ” Israel smiled. His eyes were kind as they 
rested on her. He liked this big, ingenuous girl. 

“ Have you got any money.? ” Augusta blushed 
brightly. That was not what she had wanted to say. 
She had meant to lead up. to the subject with infinite 
tact, but her clumsy, kindly tongue had betrayed her. 

“ Money? Oh yes, a dime.” 


BUD UNFOLDING 91 

“ But what are you going to do ? ” she faltered. 

You can’t . . . can’t . . 

“ Can’t pay for my night’s lodging. No, Augusta, 
but the night will not be cold.” 

“ Oh, you mustn’t, you mustn’t,” the girl whimpered, 
now holding his arm with both hands, “ you can’t do it. 
You’ll be ill . . . you’ll die . . . you’ll catch a 
cold in the head.” 

Israel laughed at the sudden pathos, laid his hand 
caressingly on the hands that clung to him, without 
noticing the blush and quick tremor of the mouth which 
responded to his first caress. 

“ Do not fear,” he said gently, “ it will not be the 
first time.” 

“ Israel,” said Augusta after a minute, breathing 
quickly, for his hand still lay on hers, “ there is a way. 
Come to lodge with us. Oh, don’t refuse, please, 
please. My father will not mind, he was in Hamburg, 
a tailor for seamen. He is with you ; he says you are 
brave men, he is a Sozial Demokrat. And . . . and 
. . . ” she hesitated, blushing again, “ I have told 
him about you. If you do not come he will think you 
are proud.” 

“ I am not proud. I have eaten the food of the 
capitalist papers to increase their circulation,” said 
Kalisch at length, “ yet, Augusta, freedom even from 
the obligation of love is very necessary. The essence 
of freedom, Augusta. ...” 

Then Augusta, creature of instinct, revolted against 
the fine words which would infallibly sap her power of 
action. She disengaged one hand, slipped her arm 
round his neck, spoke with her face very close to his. 

“ Israel, please, please come, for my sake.” 

Kalisch looked a second into the china-bluei eyes, now 


92 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


so appealing, at the snub nose, the laughter-wrinkles in 
the milk-white skin. Then, without speech or inten- 
tion, he bent his head and kissed the full red mouth. 
Augusta did not draw back, but so long as their lips 
touched he could feel a continuous shiver pass through 
her. At last she released herself, looked at him, shy, 
then roguish, then triumphant. 

“ Das ist nicJit schon/' she murmured, but there was 
no anger in her humid eyes. 


Ill 

For five weeks Israel lived in KesseFs tenement. The 
two rooms in Elizabeth Street, a road bordered for an 
infinite length by blackened houses in the last stage of 
decay, were like an antheap. There Kessel, cross- 
legged upon the table, a little dry man with a large 
pipe perpetually in his mouth, seemed to sew all day 
and most of the night for the big tailors up town; 
near him Elsa and Karl, twins aged ten, either noisily 
ate or quarrelled or wrote out their tasks with infinite 
pains; soldierly Albert, then a warehouseman, would 
gravely sit by his father, smoking too, and stolidly 
looking at a picture-book. With infinite care Albert 
fingered his picture-book, American Heroes^ and looked 
at the portraits of Sherman, Lincoln, Garfield, at every 
one of the martial scenes, Washington orating to his 
soldiers, “ Stonewall ” Jackson shot down at Chan- 
cellorsville. He considered each one with bovine 
gravity; if by chance he turned two pages at a time 
he returned to the one he had missed. When he had 
finished his gazing for that evening he would close the 
book and say “ So” Meanwhile Mrs. Kessel, who was 


BUD UNFOLDING 


93 


not once in five weeks seen by Kalisch fully dressed, 
perpetually cooked upon a reeking oil-stove equally 
reeking but excellent messes. Once a week the cooking 
was complicated by the washing; there was not much 
linen for each Kessel, but the combined garments, wet 
and steaming, made a fine show. It was in this atmos- 
phere of grease, smoke and alkali that Kalisch and 
Kessel would sit in the evening, discussing Socialism, 
of which Kessel was master in his own way. 

“ The communisation of all means of production, 
transit and commerce,” the old man would thunder. 
“ That is what we want. Bebel. Liebknecht. You 
know Liebknecht. No.^^ You should. Fine fellow. 
Ah. ...” The old man would fiercely push his 
spectacles up to his forehead, state in municipal terms 
the dreams that Kalisch harboured. 

“ Organisation ! ” He waved his scissors in the air. 
He struck and dropped his pipe. A wet nightshirt' fell 
upon his head. Mrs. Kessel cried out that the dinner 
would be upset, smacked Karl and Elsa, while Albert 
and Augusta charged each other with noisiness. No 
matter. “ Organisation,” shouted old Kessel. “ That’s 
the thing, Kalisch ; divide the world into areas of equal 
productivity. Automatic exchange. Everything owned 
in common. Group directors elected. Every man his 
book and his number. Organise, verdammt, organise, 
then there’ll be no hunger, no waste, no drain on prod- 
ucts. From the day you’re born to the day you die 
you just follow the road. You’ll have nothing to do 
but be happy.” 

‘‘No doubt,” said Israel gently, “ unless it is dull. 
Would one be happy.? ” 

“ Happy.? Of course if everything worked smoothly. 
Think what it would mean if you only had to do your 


94 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


six hours, four perhaps, take your labour bond to the 
store, draw your supplies. Ach, it would be so beauti- 
ful.” 

“ Heinrich,” cried Mrs. Kessel in American, “ are ye 
waitin’ for the moth to get into them trousers ? ” 

“ Verdammt. The trousers, I forgot.” And old 
Kessel, abandoning economics, would throw his fierce 
enthusiasm into the trousers. He had a passionate 
admiration for Kalisch, whom he did not in the least 
understand, but when he thought of trousers he 
thought of trousers. He had organised his brain in 
German Socialist style. 

Those five weeks were not unhappy. True Kalisch 
lived like a rabbit in a hutch, sleeping in a corner of 
the front room, behind the stove and under the wash- 
ing, with Albert by his side; in the other corner were 
Karl and Elsa on camp beds. The back room belonged 
to Kessel, his wife and Augusta. In the intolerable 
heat of July, unrelieved by costly ice or iced water, for 
the Herald^s Free Ice Fund did not reach the Kessels, 
the seven slept uneasily, sweating, careless of clothing, 
sometimes crawling together to the windows to breathe 
the night air laden with the stench of the ghetto. The 
heat broke down privacy, made the perfunctory baths 
of the family (in hand-carried buckets) a public affair. 
Often Kalisch would find himself sitting in his trousers, 
bare to the waist while his shirt hung drying, and Karl, 
Elsa, Albert, casually stripped and bathed; Mrs. 
Kessel, her billowy bodice open and her skirts slipping 
off, would indifferently survey the scene in the midst of 
which old Kessel sewed, sewed everlastingly. 

Augusta, however, was shy. She tended to avoid 
Kalisch, never appeared before him except as a brisk, 
neat young woman about to start for the pickle fac- 


BUD UNFOLDING 


95 


tory. When once she saw him without his collar, his 
shirt open on his white chest, she blushed, turned away 
and, without speaking, ran down the stairs. Otherwise 
she could not have withstood the temptation, she would 
have seized with both hands that broad white neck. 
Kalisch understood. She did not stir him, this pretty 
girl, who so obviously loved him ; the kiss which still 
burned on her lips had been with him merely a grateful 
impulse. He liked her, he was fond of her, but often, 
when his eyes were fixed on her and she wildly won- 
dered whether he would speak of love, he did not see 
her. His thoughts were in a flowered, social dream- 
land which was no more like her dreams of love than like 
Kessel’s municipal millennium. 

Then came the ninth and terrible week. The dock 
companies were playing for big stakes ; the reduction of 
wages was worth at least one per cent, dividend all 
round. Thus they had resolved to break the men once 
and for all, to maintain the lock-out until every shirt 
had been pawned, until every child had been driven to 
the soup-kitchen, and half-a-dozen men and girls 
goaded to suicide in the Hudson. That would settle 
the dockers for years, while a premature agreement, 
even if they completely surrendered, would leave them 
some stamina. So nothing was done; the mergers, so 
as to keep the public quiet, cheerfully paid out vast 
sums to the railways (minus most consoling rebates) 
to carry fish, fruit and necessaries from the southern 
ports ; their agents kept them posted as to the 
sources of the men; detailed statistics told them how 
many dockers had been diverted to other trades. In 
the eighth week they discovered that migration was be- 
ginning, that the men were living on casual work : they 
knew this to be dangerous, for it would deplete the 


96 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


labour market. They decided to give the men the 
knockout blow. 

Within half-an-hour of the decision in the board- 
room New York knew that the Pinkertons were coming. 
At least New York called the strikebreakers Pinker- 
tons, as an act of pious worship, for Pinkertons had 
no hand in the affair. 

“ Pinkertons,” said Kalisch, He sat helpless by the 
side of Jock and Tubby Tom on the . stones of Fulton 
Market. 

« We’re done,” said Tubby Tom dully. 

“ Done,” said Jock fiercely. “ An’ for the sake o’ 
the likes of you.” 

Israel did not reply. What did it matter It was 
all over. Within another hour the union had surrend- 
ered; they could not marshall their ragged, empty 
forces against the Pinkertons. Nine weeks of starva- 
tion did not fit them to face the clubs of the police; 
and behind the police stood the militia, rifle in hand. 

They were not strong enough to face authority, but 
they were strong enough to unload fish. The Shus- 
quamp returned to the wharf, to be greeted by the 
silent gang. 


IV 

A new formative element developed in Kalisch’s life, 
he had and needed few friends, did not consort by day 
with Tim’s gang and, absorbed in other ideas, com- 
pletely forgot Cordelli and the Hotel d’Espagne; in 
the freedom of his mind he turned to books. He had 
always read, as a boy in Pest who eagerly snatched up 
forgotten newspapers printed in unfamiliar Hungarian, 
or, great prize, a Neue Freie Presse, then, as an Ameri- 


BUD UNFOLDING 


97 


can in the making, gravely scanning the bourgeois col- 
umns of the Tribune or the Sun. But he was nineteen 
before he opened a book, a novel in a disgusting con- 
dition lent him by Tubby Tom, for it had lost its bind- 
ing and had been read by several hundred unwashed 
persons ; the flyleaf had disappeared ; all he knew was 
its name, Hermia Suydam. It described the smart 
people up town, Newport, the opera. Painful as it 
was to him, it held a fascination ; the printed page 
seemed eloquent, even when fouled with grease, and it 
fired him to follow up this very modest introduction to 
literature. 

He could afford an occasional book. The strike was 
over and the men beaten, but fish, vegetables and fruit 
again covered the wharves ; the little Shusquamp crept 
up almost every night to her anchorage and yielded 
him every week his minimum ten dollars. He could no 
longer count on eleven certain, for Tim had cut the 
price to recoup himself for the twenty cents loss on the 
ton. Tim had been honest with his gang, his loss was 
about fourteen per cent, to their ten ; thus none 
grumbled at him: indeed, the gang tended to sympa- 
thise with him, and with him to wonder when the house 
would rise on the Harlem plot. Hiram, who had suf- 
fered with the others, maintained his mysterious 
attitude; when asked why he had forsaken the boot- 
black stand in Battery Park for the strenuous labour 
of the docks, he merely replied — 

“ It is not well to kneel on the earth. The spirits 
draw the soul down.” 

Thus Israel, assured of ten dollars, in strenuous 
weeks of as much as twelve, was able to forsake the 
lodging-house and to hire for two dollars a week a 
small room in the Kessels’ tenement house. The fur- 


98 


UNTIL THE BAY BREAK 


nishing, Israel’s first, was for him a wearisome and for 
the Kessels an exciting affair ; for Augusta it was almost 
romantic: the things that were to make a home for 
Israel were — who could say? she hardly formulated 
the question — perhaps meant to be hers too. The 
Kessels dragged the reluctant Israel through every 
second-hand furniture shop in Baxter Street and the 
Bowery, drawing behind them a trail of infuriated 
Jews and Italians who screamed out against one an- 
other undercutting prices. 

. . “ Schzdndlers, all schwindlers,’' shouted Kessel. 

“ Com, two dollar for a goot bet, weiberle, listen to 
me, weiberle, ...” 

“ Hear, Signor, ...” 

“No, no, scJiwindlers, . . .” 

“ Here. Git. Scoot. Nail yer lid on. W’at are 
ye? Whistle in a fit? I’ll put the cops on ye if ye 
don’t vamose the ranch in less than a bootlift,” shouted 
Mrs. Kessel in eruptive American. “ There, ye, yes, 
ye, the old ’un with a doormat. I’ll git the fleas out o’ 
ye if ye don’t make tracks for JeRUsalem. ...” 

“ Israel,” said Augusta softly, “ won’t ye buy that 
blue vase? Ye must have something to put on the 
table.” 

“ What for? ” asked Israel. “ Is it a tobacco-jar? ” 

“No, you ...” she almost said “kid,” but re- 
spectfully stopped, “ you must have something for 
ornament.” 

“ Oh, buy it,” said Israel, “ what does it matter ? ” 

“ It does matter,” said resolute Augusta. She could 
not understand why Israel was not interested; he had 
told her that all possessions were plagues which was 
no doubt one of his fine, mad ideas. She played the 
aesthetic part in their business ; four hours of convul- 


BUD UNFOLDING 


99 


sive effort yielded Kessel and his wife a bed for two 
dollars, with bedding included, the whole in a non- 
infectious condition (with luck), a table with three 
good legs and one fair one, for sixty-five cents ; a chair 
which had been practically hurled at their heads for 
forty cents by the old gentleman with a beard like a 
doormat, when he finally sold them the bed. Augusta 
quietly bought the blue vase for ten cents and paid for 
it herself ; but she made Israel buy for the table a won- 
derful tablecloth, lacish in the middle, brown spangled, 
gilt fringed, chenilled in red. A wonderful thing. 

That night Israel blankly surveyed his new habita- 
tion. It had the advantage of not being overcrowded ; 
beyond the bed, table and chair, it contained nothing 
save a bucket for washing, a biscuit-tin for soap. In 
the middle of the table, on the tablecloth, which looked 
like a piece of material on which a teacher had demon- 
strated styles for a sewing-class, stood the blue jar. 

“Fine, that jar,” murmured Augusta. 

“ Oh, yes,” said Israel almost sulkily. 

Her heart ached. He did not know it was a gift. 

Unfriendly as the room was to him, however, Israel 
soon discovered that in it he found rest and time to 
think. There he would lie exhausted in the morning, 
sunk into a heavy sleep after the labour of the night. 
But when the afternoon came, in the midst of the 
sounds from Elizabeth Street, barks of angry dogs, 
cries of the hawkers, drone of voices all through the 
tenement-house, broken into by frequent and fierce 
quarrels, Israel would open his rusty window, seize with 
both hands the sides of his forehead and read. His 
books were not many, for they were perforce such 
books as the poor American can buy for half a dollar 
or less, the classics : Emerson's Essays^ Poor Richard's 


100 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


AlmamaCy Salmagundiy Piclcwick Papers and Oliver 
Twist; besides these he had borrowed from some capi- 
talist through his library, LowelVs Sonnetsy Endymion 
and Leaves of Grass. He read, struggling with 
unfamiliar Latinisms, his moist hands clutching at his 
moist brow, careless of the heat and reek of the street, 
of the sun every minute more avaricious of its light ; 
he was so intent on his task that he often read aloud. 
He memorised many lines, mainly of Lowell’s — 

. . Great truths are portions of the soul of man; 
Great souls are portions of eternity . . 

or again — 

**, . . They are slaves who fear to speak 
For the fallen and the weak. 

They are slaves who dare not be 
In the right with two or three.** 

Then he would become conscious of somebody in the 
room. Before he could turn Augusta would be by 
his side. 

“ Nun? ” she would say archly. 

Israel would look up at her with glowing blue eyes. 
Once she turned away, hands to face, to stop her 
clamorous mouth. 


V 

When not absorbed in his books Israel obviously 
enjoyed Augusta’s society; it thrilled her to walk with 
him in Madison Square Garden, to laugh with him at 


BUD UNFOLDING 


101 


the Ten-Cent Comedy Theatre, or to stare joyfully, for 
a dime, at Huber’s fat lady and Siamese twins ; it was 
wonderful, after a week of plenty, when Israel had 
earned eleven or twelve dollars, to sit by his side in 
Hammerstein’s, elbows touching; it was luxurious to 
insist on paying the cent for him at the Bowery Auto- 
matic, so that he might listen to Sousa in the gramo- 
phone rendering. She now loved him with almost 
irrepressionable passion. She could hardly turn away 
her eyes when he stood or sat down before her ; it was 
wonderful to see him eat, to watch his fine tobacco- 
stained teeth appear between his red lips ; it was won- 
derful to see him walk, swaying a little on his hips ; it 
was wonderful that his heavy waterproof coat, which 
smelt of oil and tar, should be so good to kiss on the 
sly; it was wonderful that he should have a mortal 
body; it was wonderful that he should be. Mrs. 
Kessel, who had eyes for things other than washing 
and stews, bluntly questioned her. 

“ What for ye makin’ eyes like a cod in Wanamus- 
kee.? Say, Augusta, it’s Israel, ain’t it.?^ Want a 
ticket for the parson’s? ” 

After a second’s hesitation Augusta, brick red and 
tremulous, faltered — 

Yes.” 

“Well, then, ye mud-dobber, why don’t ye butt in 
and ask him ? ” 

“ Mutter r 

“ Men’s men, my gal. They can’t help themselves 
more’n a dog that’s falling off the Flatiron. Say, d’ye 
think I waited for yer father? No, my gal, ’twas I 
hired the parson on to him. Ye got to come the 
hoodoo over men, my gal.” 

Augusta did not take the advice to heart. To 


102 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


marry Israel would be to enter an incomprehensibly 
lofty atmosphere. She could not drag him down. Be- 
sides, Israel, though kindly, had never spoken of love, 
kissed her again. Once or twice, when she came to his 
room, as she sometimes did when her hours of freedom 
from the pickle-factory happened to coincide with those 
the tides left him, he had played her soft, slow German 
airs on his violin, but he had not attempted to touch 
her. He had vaguely thought that the girl seemed 
fond of him and dismissed the idea; he had known 
passion in Hungary, had not escaped the attention that 
women paid his peculiar beauty ; if a new man had not 
been aroused in him by the strike and his books he 
would have seen Augusta, appreciated her fine healthi- 
ness, observed that her eyes were blue, her hair heavy 
and yellow, her skin white as his own; her love of him 
might have inflamed him. But a rival was in the field 
and beating her out of it. In the intervals of his 
frightful labour, when Israel arose from his bed still 
stupefied with sleep, the little heap of books on the 
singular tablecloth called him; he put the blue jar on 
the floor, dropped in it the ash of “casses.” At times 
he inadvertently kicked Augusta’s gift. For he was 
too conscious of his soul now to remember his body ; he 
was too steeped in learning to love all men, to be able 
to love one woman. He loved naught but his thoughts, 
his brethren and, among them, perhaps Warsch. 

Warsch figured in his life with some brightness. He 
made the acquaintance of the furrier’s hand in simple 
fashion. He had carried away from Battery Park a 
clear-cut memory of the burly German with the big, 
measured voice and the long scar. He accosted him 
on Fourth Avenue and said — 

“ You are comrade Warsch.? ” 


BUD UNFOLDING lOS 

“ Yes,” said Warsch, throwing him a glance of sus- 
picion. 

“ I am Kalisch, of the Dockers’ Union.” 

Warsch held out his hand. He liked the preten- 
tiousness or the simplicity of the “ I am Kalisch.” 
They walked together an hour, and at the end of it 
were friends. 

“ You know, comrade,” said Warsch in his deep, 
steady voice, “ that I am not one of you. I am a 
furrier. But every worker is your brother, is he not.? ” 

“ Yes,” said Kalisch, “ or at least my friend, the 
masterpiece of nature.” 

“ Emerson ! ” cried Warsch. And, impulsively, he 
linked arms with Israel. “ Not that Emerson was with 
us,” he added, “ but he was great, as was Bismarck in 
his way. I do not love my governors, though,” he 
added, with a dry laugh; “ I am a Socialist. You.? ” 

“ Oh, I don’t know. I am against authority.” 

‘‘ Hum,” said Warsch doubtfully, “ there is another 
name for that. Still . . . three months ago I was 
a Socialist ; I thought one could capture the machine, 
use it, organise production, keep down waste ; now 
. . . well, after this strike I hardly know . . . 
perhaps the system’s too strong to take over. . . .” 

“ Perhaps not too strong to kill,” said Kalisch, fixing 
his eyes upon him. 

“ Perhaps not. Perhaps I begin to think as you 
seem to. It’s only a matter of suffering enough. 
Most of my life I’ve starved; I worked twelve hours a 
day before I was twelve; I’ve read instead of sleeping; 
I’ve been driven by the police, insulted by the sight of 
the rich, made to weep by that of the poor. I’ve 
known pain of soul and pain of body. You see this 
scar? ” 


104 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


« Yes.” 

“ I was eighteen. A Uhlan officer tried to shoulder 
me off the sidewalk. I pushed him back. He struck 
me with his sabre. When I got well again I had to 
leave the country; the police hunted me. He was re- 
moved to another garrison.” 

Israel told Warsch all he could remember of his child- 
hood, a tale similar to that of his new friend, one of 
wandering, labour, hunger and stripes. The two men 
felt rare pleasure in expansion ; as they recounted them 
their pains were less heavy on their memories; they 
even understood them to be refining, for they had 
aroused their minds to the pains of others. The habit 
grew on both of passing together many of their spare 
hours, hours of unending reminiscence, of visualisation 
of the days to come when the workers would have con- 
quered their rights. Often Augusta, when she ran to 
Israel’s room, found it empty. Sometimes the broad, 
burly German sat on the bed and hardly noticed her ; 
it exasperated her to think that Israel should prefer 
his society to hers. She waylaid him on the stairs, 
determined to tell him she loved him, to beg him to 
marry her, but always her courage failed her when 
Israel turned upon her the kindly blue of his 
eyes. 

On the night of Augusta’s eighteenth birthday her 
love burst its way out of the prison of her pride. The 
Kessels celebrated the event by an enormous feast, to 
which no stranger save Israel was admitted. The 
washing was out of the way; Kessel had been removed 
from the table, while on the stove steamed several large 
pans, the combined smell of which, if a little unpleasant, 
was hospitable. Through the open window the steamy 
air of New York swept in, fetid, impure. It was a 


BUD UNFOLDING 


105 


solemn gathering, for Kessel and Albert both wore linen 
collars ; Kessel had waxed his grey moustache into an 
unsocialistic Kaiser shape, while Albert had polished 
his face until his short snub nose, little larger than his 
sister’s, absolutely glowed. Mrs. Kessel had put on as 
many hooks as were required on her blouse, persuaded 
her belt to meet and hold ; beyond an air of flushed ex- 
citement and a tendency to keep an eye on the stove, 
she had the gracious manner of a hostess. Karl, his 
yellow hair beautifully flattened with a wet sponge, 
and Elsa, a small Margaret with heavy yellow pigtails, 
drank their soup less noisily than usual. The meal was 
perhaps a little too refined; Augusta, especially, who 
sat by Kalisch’s side, though her pink and white face 
bloomed flower-like over a new red and blue blouse, 
looked hardly content with herself. From the corner 
of one eye she watched Kalisch, who unkempt and un- 
washed, responded abstractedly to Kessel’s jokes. 

“ Come, Israel,” said the old man, “ have some more 
soup. You don’t get soup like that every day. Cauli- 
flower soup, the soup of the old country. Have you 
had any bacon ? ” 

“ Course he had bacon,” snapped Mrs. Kessel ; ‘‘ d’ye 
think I dropped me eyes when I cut it up.” 

“ More bacon,” shouted Karl. 

Karl was reproved, served, quarrelled with Elsa, whichi 
helped to bridge the silence of the first course. When 
the second, baked salt cod with butter sauce, was served 
tongues became freer, Kessel poured out large mugs 
of beer for the adults, cupfuls for the twins. Then 
came the hare, an enormous beast that seemed still 
more enormous as it lay spread-eagled on the dish, 
flayed, headless and horrible, larded wherever possible 
with little pieces of bacon. 


106 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


Hase,'* shouted the children, 

“ Ah, that is a beast,” said Albert, moistening his 
lips with his tongue. 

‘‘ Father shot it,” said Augusta, speaking for the 
first time. There was laughter, and soon all, even 
Kalisch, were talking, drinking the beer, of which there 
was a three-gallon jar. They ripped all the flesh 
from the back of the hare, ate even its legs ; their faces 
began to shine; they gulped down with the meat whole 
tablespoonfuls of stewed yellow plums. As Kessel 
drank more beer he became sentimental. 

“ It makes me think of the old country. It was a 
•verfluchtes life we led there, Kalisch, but still, it’s 
Deutschlandy Deutschland ilber alleSy isn’t it. Do you 
remember Sedan’s Day? ” 

“ No,” said Kalisch, “ it’s too long ago. I hardly 
was in Germany, you see. Still, it might have been 
better then.” He too thought tenderly of this fat old 
country of which he had always thought, without good 
reason, as a happy land, just because its language was 
his own. “ I hope the day will come . . . ” 

He stopped abruptly. Augusta leaned forward, 
eyes aglow, to soothe herself with some beautiful 
thought. But his mood changed. Suddenly he was on 
his feet, copper hair quivering and eyes flashing. 

“ To the devil with gloom,” he shouted, as he raised 
his heavy mug of beer, “ to the devil with the social 
revolution. Here’s to the thing of the day, to Augusta 
and her eighteen years. Here’s to her hair that’s like 
rippling ripe corn, and here’s to her eyes, blue as a 
flower of the fields, here’s to her blushes that are like 
the dawn, to her life and her joy for ever.” 

There was an outburst of approval round the girl, 
who sat serious, her fingers nervously playing at the 


BUD UNFOLDING 


107 


hired tablecloth. Old Kessel was vainly shouting some- 
thing. 

“ That’s well said,” Albert was stupidly repeating, 
“ that’s well said, I say, that’s well ...” 

“ Oh, oh, look how she’s blushing ...” 

“ Ain’t he scrumptious ! ” 

‘‘ Karl, Karl, turn the tap off . . . ” 

At last old Kessel made himself heard. 

“ Sit down, sit down. The time for toasts is not yet. 
It is irregular. Sit down, Kalisch, verdammt, we must 
organise properly. ...” 

But the company was out of hand. It ate and 
screamed and made jokes, and drank far too much 
beer ; after the hare came an enormous sweet corn pie, 
half full of jam, then bananas, and more beer. The 
toast to Augusta was drunk over again; a steaming 
pot of black coffee seemed to yield up endless cupfuls. 
Everybody was talking together, Karl and Elsa 
wrangled as to the marks they had at school, Albert, 
who was partly drunk, was repeating, “ Then the fore- 
man said to me, he said, said the foreman,” without 
ever finishing his sentence; Mrs. Kessel bad joined in 
a shrill argument between her husband, Kalisch and 
Augusta as to the desirability of giving women votes 
in New York State, Augusta defending as soon as she 
saw that Israel was friendly to the idea. At last a 
silence seemed to fall over the company ; they had eaten 
and drunk too much. Kalisch rose, played on his 
violin a nocturne of Chopin, then a melancholy Hun- 
garian air. Augusta looked at him raptly, her eyes 
bathed in tears. As for Albert, he openly blubbered. 

“ Now, now,” Kessel bustled at last, “ this won’t do. 
We must be merry, verdammt^ yes, merry. Let us sing.” 

Kalisch did not know their songs, but the six Ger- 


108 UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 

mans sang together a cheerful, meaningless jingle — 

“Wozu hat denn der Elephant ’nen Russel? 

Wozu? Wozu? 

Dazu hat ja der Elephant ’nen Russel, 

Dazu. Dazu.” 

until he began to laugh, to join in. In Griinewald too 
he found he could learn — 

** In Griinewald, in Griinewald ist Holtzauktion.^ 

1st Holtzauktion, Ist Holtzauktion, 

In Griinewald, in Griinewald ist Holtzauktion 
Ist Holtzauktion, Ist Holtzauktion. 

Das, Philip, hast du alles von dem Vater, 

Dem Vater, Dem Vater, 

Das, Philip, hast du alles von dem Vater, 

Vom Vater hast du ’s ja.” 

Kalisch was soothed by these simple folk, Mrs. Kessel, 
so kindly under her fierce American coating, Kessel, 
limited in his idealism by his municipal view, but sin- 
cere and generous. And Augusta: for a moment her 
sweetness attracted him; he could hear the pure tone 
of a bell in her voice as she sang — 

“ Rechts um die Eck’ herum,^ 

Links um die Eck’ herum, 

Uberall und iiberall ist Holtzauktion. « . 

1 “ In Gruenewald forest they are selling the wood, 

They’re selling the wood, they’re selling the wood, 

In Gruenewald forest they’re selling the wood. 

They’re selling the wood, they’re selling the wood. 

Thou hast all that, Philip, ’cos thy father was good, 

’Cos thy father was good, ’cos thy father was good. 

Thou hast all that, Philip, ’cos thy father was good. 

It is thine ’cos thy father was good.” 

2 “ On the right they are selling, are selling thy wood. 

On the left they are selling, are selling thy wood, 

That is thine ’cos thy father was good. . . 


BUD UNFOLDING 


109 


but the rapture passed, and she was again no more 
than a sweet girl. Later, when the twins were sent to 
bed, Kessel took him into a corner, whispered something 
which beer had not clarified about Augusta, a good 
looker, verdammt, with a mitgift of twenty-five dollars. 
Israel foiled the old man by telling him he was in favour 
of free-union. Old Kessel said not a word, but sat 
down in a corner on the floor. He was crushed. 
There was no room in his organised Socialism for men 
and women bound by no State contract. Augusta, 
who was apparently washing up with her mother, had 
guessed; her lips trembled, though she continually bit 
them as she bent over the washtub. For the space of 
a second only did she turn her rosy face and wet eyes 
toward Israel as he bade her good-night, for he would 
soon be due on the wharf. 

A quarter of an hour later, as Israel was drawing 
on his heavy boots, there was a tremendous tapping at 
the door. Then it was flung open. Augusta was so 
frightened that she had almost burst into the room. 

“Well.?” said Israel smiling. 

The girl stood framed in the doorway against the 
black stairs, lit up by Israel’s burning candle. Her 
features were rigid with excitement. 

“ Well, Augusta.? ” Israel repeated; his heart beat a 
little, for he knew and was sorry. 

“ Israel . . . Israel . . . I’ve come. I know 
what father said ...” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Is that all you can say .? ” 

“ But, Augusta, I said that I did not believe in 
marriage. We are free and we must not bind ourselves. 
To be bound makes us hate the thing we are bound to. 
In days to come when the thoughts of men . . .” 


110 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


Oh,” Augusta burst out, both hands clasped at her 
breast. ‘‘ I knew. I knew. You don’t want to marry 
me. You don’t love me. Ach, mein Gott, and I love 
you, Israel, I love you. ...” She burst into tears, 
tottered into the room. Israel caught her, let her rest 
her head upon his shoulder, where for a time she noisily 
wept. 

“ Don’t you love me a little? ” she whispered. As she 
raised towards him her tear-stained face Israel was sud- 
denly tempted to kiss her, if only in pity, to marry her 
perhaps. But, what was she to him? Even as he 
held her he was thinking of womankind, not woman. 

“ Augusta,” he said gently, “ marriage, you 
see ...” 

“ Listen,” said the girl. She freed herself, hesitated, 
opened her mouth and closed it again. Then she seized 
a heavy strand of yellow hair which had fallen across 
her face, wrenched at it with a sort of despair as she 
crushed down her traditions. “ Listen, Israel. You 
say you do not believe in marriage. I don’t know. I 
don’t understand. Perhaps you are right. Oh yes, 
you are, you are right, you must be right, you are 
always right. Listen then, I don’t know what I’m 
doing, but if you don’t believe in marriage, never mind. 
I don’t mind, if only I can always live with you . . . 
because I love you, Israel, because you’re the light that 
has come into my life, because I can’t live without you. 
Oh . . . don’t send me away, Israel, don’t send me 
away.” 

Through eyes suddenly dim Israel saw the out- 
stretched hands. 

‘‘ My poor Augusta,” he said slowly, “ the past 
would be too strong for you. You would feel dis- 
graced, and thus you would be disgraced. You would 


BUD UNFOLDING 


111 


hate yourself for yielding, me for taking. No. You 
would be sorry, poor child, no.” 

The girl looked at him, amazed, as he refused the 
gift of her traditions, then suddenly turned, ran, as if 
her modesty had reconquered her, and as she fled down 
the stairs Israel could hear her crying out softly, 
moaning, rather, ‘‘Oh — oh — oh . . . oh — oh — 
oh . . .oh — oh.” 


VI 

In the early days of October Warsch introduced 
ICalisch to the Flegel Club. The club had evolved little 
by little from a Turnvereiriy i. e. a gymnastic society, 
into a purely socialistic body whose members were 
either theoretically interested in politics and labour 
questions or practically inclined to meet to discuss the 
conditions of their own work ; the athletic young Ger- 
mans who founded it had been driven out by talk, and 
now nothing remained of the Turnverein save a pile of 
dumb-bells in a corner, covered with dust as befitted 
the forgotten gravestone of the old club. The Flegel 
occupied two rooms, one small and one very large, on 
the ground floor of an old house in Orchard Street and 
impressed the visitor by its austere appearance. 
There was not even a rug on the stained boards ; some 
thirty wooden tables were scattered about, surrounded 
by a hundred chairs, more or less lame ; along one end 
of the large inner room ran a raised platform of boards 
ending at a desk which served as a rostrum, as a secre- 
tary’s office and as a receptacle for the barman’s books. 
An enormous oak chest contained his bottles, and were 
flanked by two casks of beer whose bungs could be pad- 


lU 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


locked. That was all, unless the heavy red curtains 
which blotted out the windows, the tiled stove and the 
few pictures on the wall could be counted as ornaments. 
Those pictures were cheap portraits of Karl Marx, 
Proudhon, Owen, Fourier and Liebknecht; roughly 
pasted into a common frame were small reproductions 
cut from newspapers of photographs of a dozen living 
European Socialists, notably Bebel, Jaures, Bernard 
Shaw and Vandervelde. Alone on the wall which faced 
the rostrum was a big engraving of the Chicago 
martyrs of 1887 ; the four. Spies, Parsons, Fischer and 
Engels, hung from the same gallows, while in medallions 
at the corners of the picture figured those who were not 
hanged, Schwab, Fielden, Neebe and Ling, the latter 
smoking a cigar, in memory of the manner of his death. 
This picture was tolerated by the pure Socialists : they 
were not satisfied that the Chicago martyrs were not 
Anarchists, but at the time of Kalisch’s joining, when 
the club was regaining strength after the strike, dis- 
cussion had ceased. The feelings of the members were 
veering around towards bomb-throwing. The more or 
less Fabian Socialists were silent, while vague talk of 
Syndicalism, of the general strike, of universal 
sabotage, was in the air. 

It was a congenial atmosphere for Kalisch. Often, 
when he entered the Flegel, half-a-dozen men would 
together call to him from the tables where they sat in 
groups, smoking cigarettes over their beer ; he was 
popular, though he did not speak at the weekly meet- 
ings when as many as a hundred men crowded round the 
platform to listen gravely to speeches on communisa- 
tion, idealism in literature or the inner history of lead- 
poisoning in the pottery trade. The air was brisk, 
violent, surcharged with ideas and, when Kalisch first 


BUD UNFOLDING 


113 


breathed it, curiously sullen and determined. This 
was not to be wondered at, for the Flegel contained 
very different elements ; a number of officials of the 
unions governing the dockers, railwaymen, labourers, 
compositors, shop-assistants, a few Socialist journalists 
and one or two young men who lived up town and had 
been inflamed into Socialism while at Harvard by the 
works of William Morris. 

But on the whole the Flegel was a debating club 
rather than a centre of propaganda ; the differences 
between its members were too great to allow of common 
action. At one end of the scale were men such as 
Kolden and Kessel, who believed that by capturing 
Congress and the Senate communisation could be 
brought about ; at the other were frank revolutionaries, 
one of whom Kalisch discovered himself to be, and dis- 
illusioned Socialists such as Warsch, who were reluc- 
tantly abandoning constitutional methods for revolu- 
tionary trade unionism. Between the two extremes 
hovered a number of men whose views were fluid. 
Tolstoyan passive resisters, municipal Socialists, Com- 
munists, Pastoralists, Collective Republicans, mere 
Labourites. The flame of controversy was ever pres- 
ent among them; nearly all were foreigners, Germans, 
Poles, Scandinavians, Italians ; most of the born Ameri- 
cans bore foreign names. 

It was not until January that Kalisch made his first 
speech. The lecturer was a clothier from Chicago who, 
for a whole hour, told a terrible tale of underground 
workshops where men and women worked herded to- 
gether, doors closed and windows shut, in the thick 
steamy air of the stuffs and unwashed bodies, twelve 
hours a day for six dollars a week. His name was 
Heinrich Bittern. 


114 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


“ Oh, comrades, comrades,” said Bittern sadly, 
“ think well of these things.” He knotted together his 
short, red hands. Sweat was running down his piti- 
able white face; from his immense eyes came a look as 
soft as a caress. His ragged moustache quivered over 
his thin mouth. “ Think well of them,” he repeated, 
“ think of us. We sit with you in the same galley, 
our groans mix in the same air. We are one and our 
cause is one. We are caught between the little work- 
shops that cannot pay us and the great ones that will 
not. Our daughters are withered at sixteen unless they 
are stolen at fourteen. Our wives are old as our 
mothers. Our mothers are dead. If you cannot make 
laws for us we too will die.” 

Heinrich Bittern suddenly sat down. There was a 
hush over the big room in which some sixty men were 
sitting, short, dark Poles with handsome, florid Ger- 
mans, great Swedish seamen, immense legs out- 
stretched. Wearily Bittern looked at them; his hands 
were nerveless, his eyes wet. A few voices whispered. 
Then there was a harsh sound. 

“ Ha-ha . . . ha-ha . . . that’s very funny.” 

The scraping of the chairs on the floor came shrilling 
as the audience turned to look at the incredible man 
who was laughing. They saw him through the haze 
of smoke, a big Jew, crowned with copper locks, laugh- 
ing, full-mouthed, hands on hips. There were a few 
cries of “ Sit down ” and “ Schaendlich,** which the 
chairman, who was seated by the side of Bittern, cut 
short. 

“Do you wish to speak, comrade Kalisch.?^” he 
asked. 

“ Ha-ha, speak, yes, when I’ve laughed. But, com- 
rades, it is too humorous that comrade Bittern should 


BUD UNFOLDING 


115 


tell us these things. He and his kind suffer, are born 
to die early, know no sufficiency of food, security of 
work, joy of life. And the remedy, oh, the remedy, is 
the law! ...” 

“ Yes, it is the law, nothing but the law.” 

“ So you say, comrade Kolden,” for it was the neat 
organiser who had interrupted, “ but do you not know 
what the law is.? Law, comrades, is a three-card trick, 
and there is no lady. The makers of the law are Penel- 
opes who undo at night what they do by day. The 
paymaster and the taxmaster live in the same house; 
the first gives you a cent for every dollar the second 
takes. The law, the majestic law that flogs and elec- 
trocutes, the law that gaols the hungry and the wan- 
derer, the law that gives votes so that it may buy them 
back for a dollar apiece, oh, it’s a fine thing, the law. 
A thing to be loyal to, comrades, in a Christian spirit 
too, for what is loyalty but kissing the rod? ” 

“ No religion,” shouted a little dark man, Italian 
probably; his voice was drowned in a chorus of pro- 
test and approval. Twenty men were on their feet, 
shouting to Kalisch to go on or sit down. A haze of 
dust rose from the trampled floor. But Israel was 
still speaking, and ended by dominating the audience. 
He was serious now. 

‘‘ Comrades, listen to me. You must expect nothing 
from the law, the State. The law gave you a McKin- 
ley Tariff, raised your wages ten per cent., your cost 
of living twenty; the law gave you courts of so-called 
justice, and it gave you costs; the law gave you an 
army of defence and a militia to fire on you ; the State 
gave you Cuba, Porto Rico, the Philippines, and it 
gave you concessionaires.” In a slow voice through 
which ran restrained passion Israel poured out on his 


116 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


cowed audience knowledge he did not know himself to 
possess. Everything he had read for a year, news- 
papers, pamphlets, fine virile sayings of Lincoln and 
Franklin, seemed to burst from his memory. He saw, 
and saw in ordered manner, the immense grinding 
machinery of the social world. 

“ No, friends,” he said, “ the law can do nothing for 
you. It is made by the rich through the poor against 
the poor.” 

“What is your remedy .J*” cried Warsch. He was 
pale with excitement; even the scar was livid. 

“ The strike, the revolutionary strike . . . insur- 
rection . . . when the rights of the people are 
threatened insurrection becomes the most sacred and 
inalienable of rights. . . . Organise strikes and or- 
ganise starvation . . . compel the rich to feel for a 
week what the poor feel all their lives. . . . Away 
with Acts of Congress to the Tammany booths whence 
they came . . . and agitate, agitate, throw the world 
into convulsion, so that all its face may be obliterated 
and a new order may be built. ...” 

There was a roar of cheers ; shrill cries of protest 
pierced through it. The Italian was still screaming 
“ No religion,” while Kolden, surrounded by an angry 
group, demonstrated to his satisfaction the absurdity 
of such violence. Meanwhile a bigger group of in- 
quirers, sympathisers and opponents had formed round 
Warsch and Kalisch, who suddenly found himself a 
hero. From that day onwards Israel carried upon his 
shoulders the mantle of leadership. A place was 
offered him at almost every table whenever he entered 
the room, for the majority of the Flegel was frankly 
revolutionary and opposed to the gas and water Social- 
ism of Kolden and his associates. Kalisch’s chief dis- 


BUD UNFOLDING 


in 


ciples were Warsch, an old man who had known 
Bakunin, and Stone, an American, who had shaken 
hands with Emma Goldman on the day which had been 
fatal to the soldier B’uwalda. Still the Flegel was 
nominally Socialist and, if a poll had been taken, 
might have declared itself such; thus Kalisch, finding 
himself in opposition, had to arm himself very 
thoroughly, to read the whole of Das Kapital and sun- 
dry “ pure Socialist ” pamphlets, also Fabian tracts 
and Progress and Poverty, and others, so as to be fit 
to contest the Socialist doctrine whether put forward 
from the theoretic or applied point of view. But he 
also read more aggressive books : Bakunin’s Revolution- 
ary Catechism and Principles of Revolution, Tucker’s 
attack on State Socialism, Malato’s Philosophie de 
V Anarchie in a bad German translation, and the fierce 
tracts) or treatises of Kropotkin, Elzbacher, Reclus and 
Malatesta. He developed a growing hatred of Social- 
ism, a deep conviction that in unfettered individualism 
and in unlimited freedom lay the salvation of the 
world. His capacity for learning, his Jewish facility 
of assimilation soon placed him in the forefront of de- 
bate and, in frequent collisions, usually procured his 
victory. 

It was Anarchism, no doubt, completely severed him 
from Augusta. The girl, after shunning him for over 
three months, had one day answered his mild “ good- 
day,” allowed herself to be drawn into conversation. 
Israel knew that he had acted for the best, which 
meant that he had hurt her. He was helpless to allay 
her pain, for he still saw in the eyes, that seemed bluer 
and bigger in the face which had grown thin, a hunger 
for him. They had talked haltingly of Kessel and 
Mrs. Kessel, neither of whom forgave him his refusal of 


118 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


their daughter, of Karl, Elsa, Albert, who out of sheer 
stupidity had behaved like a hero. 

“ The warehouse was on fire from the bottom,” said 
Augusta, ‘‘ everybody ran to the escape. It jammed. 
They were all running about, mad, with the smoke 
coming up through the floor. Then Albert got on the 
escape, got down it as far as he could . . . they 
thought he was going to jump, and he was, twenty 
yards, the big fool, and they screamed not to from 
the street . . . and then, as he was swinging at the 
end his weight pulled out the escape ... it unfolded 
like a telescope, slowly, putting him down gently like 
you put an egg . . . and they were all saved.” 

“ Wonderful,” said Kalisch, “ it was clever of him.” 

‘‘ Clever,” sniffed Augusta, wrinkling her snub nose, 
“ no, lucky. But they thought it great the way he 
looked as if he pulled at that escape ... he didn’t 
know it would open . . . and the boss gave him a 
hundred dollars and a two-dollar rise as timekeeper.” 

The heroism of Albert served as a bridge. The two 
could talk again, even walk together, but they tacitly 
avoided the word “ love.” Daily Augusta grew more 
sick with passion; she surprised herself in the street 
touching his hand as if by inadvertence and allowing 
the contact to continue ; she had early morning dreams 
of great foaming masses of copper curls. The strange, 
desirous companionship went on for a whole year, un- 
changed by any word or deed, for Israel seemed every 
day to sink himself deeper into his thoughts, Augusta 
to armour her pride. Her heart was sore, but her 
pride was sorer. She could meet Kalisch, talk long 
and listen long, but she had re-erected round herself 
the walls of convention through which, on the night fol- 
lowing her birthday, she had made a breach. A word 


BUD UNFOLDING 


119 


from him, a turning towards those walls of the trumpet 
of his voice, and they would have fallen. But he had 
no such words for her; he could charm her into silent 
adoration by telling her of a beautiful world to come 
where there would be no ruling and no slaving, where 
men and women would live as lovers in a gorgeous 
Thelema ; her eyes would open dreamily, appear bluer ; 
her cheeks would flush, but she remained the mere 
disciple while the apostle turned towards the world. 
Old Kessel viewed with disquiet this intimacy, but he 
did not forbid it ; he was together insulted and pleased, 
for he no longer desired Kalisch as a son-in-law. A 
Socialist, yes, an Anarchist, no. Such was his atti- 
tude. He knew that Israel had refused the girl to her 
face, and that was an outrage he could hardly brook ; 
but it comforted him as it ensured that Augusta, re- 
jected as a wife, would not be his victim. He had felt 
powerless to control her, though he had been inclined 
to forbid the intimacy, but Mrs. Kessel had wisely 
vetoed coercion : “ Kids don’t hook dough-nuts,” she 
had said, ’cept when ye lay ’em on the top shelf.” 
Augusta, having no other suitor, was allowed to pursue 
her hopeless romance : had it not been for a flerce 
quarrel between Israel and her father she might again 
have offered herself. Kalisch had written to the little 
revolutionary weekly. The Beacon, a letter in which 
be demonstrated that the purchase of waterworks by 
the cities was ill-advised, and that better terms could 
be obtained if the reservoir dams were destroyed by an 
angry populace. Thus, he thought, might the water 
companies be terrorised or ruined into yielding up 
again the concessions they had stolen. 

“ It is abominable,” shouted Kessel. He was sitting, 
cross-legged, pipe in hand, at work on the eleventh 


120 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


waistcoat of that day. “ You want to make chaos of 
society, to ruin organisation. Verdammt, what will 
become of the world without organisation.^ ” 

“ A place fit to live in.” 

“ A swamp, inhabited by men with the morals of 
wolves, morals like . . . like ...” 

‘‘ Like mine.? ” 

“ You are like your friends,” feinted Kessel. 

“ How dare you attack my morals ? ” asked Kalisch 
angrily. His blue eyes glittered. “ They are not 
your morals, but what then.? How do you know your 
morals are sound.? Are they sound in Utah or in 
Turkey.? Were they sound a thousand years ago? 
There are no morals except those each man be- 
lieves in.” 

“ Ach! sehr praMisch,^^ sneered the old man, “ you 
want to make your own laws and to break them.” 

“ You want other people to make your laws so that 
you may be a slave.” 

“ A slave ! ” screamed the old man “ I . . . why, 
under Socialism ...” 

. .“ Under Socialism youll be the slave of everybody 
instead of the slave of somebody. You’ll be in the 
hands of corrupt bureaucrats instead of in those of 
corrupt politicians. You’ll have a right to work and 
no right to pay.” 

‘‘ You lie.” 

“ You’ll be the whipped cur of a caste, the toy of 
production crises, the chattel which the States will ex- 
change when under- or over-populated, you’ll have gone 
from slavery to slavery, as the Englishman, Kipling, 
says from life to life, from despair to despair. And 
you, Kessel, you, the so-called advanced mind, will in 
that State be among the Reactionaries.” 


BUD UNFOLDING 


121 


“ MarscTi! ” shouted the old man. He could say no 
more, he was speechless with fury; great scissors in 
hand he made for Israel. There was confusion, Mrs. 
Kessel seized him by the neck, begging him to wait 
until the sun shone if he wanted to have a row. While 
most of the washing fell into the dirt Israel was almost 
expelled by Albert and Augusta. His breach with the 
Kessels was complete, for Augusta was forbidden to 
speak to him, once severely beaten for having disobeyed 
her father. Israel made no advances to her ; he could 
not help her; if love, he thought, came to him, it 
must come splendid and conquering, not garbed in the 
grey robe of pity. Such love he had for mankind, the 
poor struggling thing that hurt itself every time it 
struck at an institution through another institution. 
Humanity was the only mistress he could love through 
pity. 

Then Augusta suddenly disappeared from his life. 
A middle-aged master-tailor from Chicago, to whom she 
had carried for her father specimens of braiding, was 
seized with sudden passion for the white-skinned Ger- 
man girl, whose misty blue eyes seemed to promise love 
to any man who could give her a kind word. A day of 
tempestuous wooing, an hour of chaffering with old 
Kessel, a few minutes’ hesitation while Augusta without 
a protest gave up her desperate romance, weakened by 
sheer starvation, and the parson tied these two. The 
same night she left with her husband for Chicago with- 
out seeing Kalisch ; she did not try to ; she was content 
to go up to his room and steal the blue vase, half full 
of cigarette-stumps his lips had touched. When Israel 
indirectly heard the news he did not for a moment con- 
sider whether she had suffered ; he took it she had tired 
of waiting. 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


12 ^ 

“ I hope she will be happy,” he soliloquised, “ sweet 
Augusta. Why cannot all women, I wonder . . 

He said no more, but he had forgotten the woman and 
was thinking of women, women whom he loved too much 
to love one ; he could not be unfaithful to a sex. Some 
days later he missed the blue vase. “ Stolen,” he 
thought, “ well, I shouldn’t have thought it worth steal- 
ing.” 

Another year passed, a year of uneventful toll at the 
wharf, unbroken by hunger or by strikes ; Tim was 
making money and would soon lay the foundation-stone 
on the plot at Harlem ; J ock had resigned membership 
of the Dockers’ Union, cursing all agitators, including 
Kalisch, while Tubby Tom, who gravely listened to 
Kalisch’s views on revolution without taking them in, 
hovered between him and anarchism and Jock and 
“ free labour.” Hiram still loaded the fish-baskets ; at 
times he read omens in the colour of the sea or smelt 
spirits in the night. Israel was almost every evening 
at the Flegel, where he led the Syndicalist section in 
opposition to Kolden and the Socialists, whom he finally 
routed in set debate. In his peroration, having de- 
monstrated that Socialism would kill all initiative, 
fortify the tyrant State, reduce production and lower 
its quality by removing the incentive of distinction, he 
stated his faith. 

“ I believe in Anarchism, comrades,” he said in the 
vast smoky room, ‘‘ because I do not believe that an 
organisation can be a good thing. I believe that laws 
are bad because no one law suits two men. I believe 
that to compel obedience to law is tyrannical, that to 
establish nationality, citizenship, family relationship, 
is tyrannical. I believe that there can be no happiness 
without freedom to work with whom you please, where 


BUD UNFOLDING 


ti2S 

you please, as you please; freedom to exchange and 
freedom to enjoy; freedom to associate and freedom to 
write ; freedom to wed in freedom ; freedom so full that 
none who have it can imagine any other condition. I 
believe, too, that there are no steps towards such a 
goal ; it is not true that you pass from freedom that is 
lawless, through tyranny, to freedom that is awful; 
tyranny kills as surely as fever ; authority corrupts the 
servant by teaching him servility, corrupts the master 
by teaching him arrogance. Therefore I believe in 
war against all compulsory organisations, in strikes 
and in sabotage; I believe in revolution because revolu- 
tion alone can break up society; I want a new society 
in which new men can live as men. I want to shock 
and frighten into fragments this old society of stripes, 
hunger, gaols and blood, so that another society may 
arise, where man will do his will, unfettered by anything 
save the desire for beauty and for joy, a desire selfish 
and altruist, a desire hedonistic and ascetic, dictated by 
the yearning of his soul.” 

Kalisch had carried the meeting, but, within a fort- 
night, calamity burst in upon him. Suddenly the small 
ship-owners were forced by threats to enter a merger; 
the new trust engaged the contractors’ staffs except 
such men as had taken part in the strike and a few 
who were known as Syndicalists. One of these was 
Kalisch. He was blacklisted. Simultaneously, as if an 
organised attempt was being made to crush the Flegel, 
the furriers blacklisted three of its members, one of 
whom was Warsch. The furriers’ hands were poor, 
foreign, ill-organised; their threat to strike was disre- 
garded, for it was futile; the dockers, taught by their 
bitter experience, bowed their heads. 

‘‘What shall we do.?” asked Warsch of Kalisch. 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


IM 

‘‘I do not know. We are outlaws, Warsch . . . 
beaten to a frazzle.” 

Warsch smiled at the pathetic Americanism. They 
were beaten, and there was no hope that their trades 
would receive them back ; from Manhattan to the Golden 
Horn every company would have photographs and de- 
scriptions of the red-headed Jew and the German with 
the great scar. 

“ England,” said Kalisch at length, “ we have money 
to-day. In a month we shall have none. We can earn 
our passage by tending the cattle on the boats. Three 
years in America is enough. Besides, if we do not go 
now, we may never go, for in another month there will 
be an Act in England against foreigners who have not 
twenty-five dollars. Let us go to England; Kropotkin 
lives there, perhaps because of all lands it is least in 
chains.” 


VII 

They sailed in the evening. New York had been 
making holiday. On a small steamer, laden with youths 
and girls, who were concluding their day at Coney 
Island by a trip round the harbour, they could hear 
laughter and singing. The night wind carried faintly 
to their ears America’s farewell — 

. . Shoo ! Fly ! dontcher bulldoze me. 

For I blong ter Company G. . . 


PART II 


LONDON TOWN 















CHAPTER I 


IMPAR CONGRESSUS ACHILLI 

I 

Kalisch and Warsch did not have to wait for the cattle- 
boat to land its eight hundred steers. They left it in 
Tilbury Docks with the mob of slaughter-house hands, 
a big, filthy monster of a boat, of which they wanted to 
forget even the name. The sixteen days’ passage, its 
interminable duties, its ever-recurring four hour 
watches, all this, the sullen steers who wickedly waited 
for a chance to trample on the men who raked out their 
straw, the dirt of the wooden bunks and the foulness of 
the desiccated salt food, had gone to join the pile of 
their suffering. 

“ Free,” said Warsch joyfully, as he stamped on the 
wharf to emphasise his point. 

Free from that,” replied Kalisch, and indicated the 
boat, ‘‘ free from those sixteen helots and their bosses, 
free from our fifty steers apiece, free from that rolling. 
Ach! ” 

Warsch began to laugh. Kalisch was so poor a 
sailor that the two bilge keels of the big boat had not 
saved him from sea-sickness. His bad sea-legs had been 
such a joke among the cattlemen that they had made a 
practice of holding him while one of the more eloquent 
described compounds the least unpleasant of which was 
one of train-oil and strawberries and cream mixed, in 
the hope of “ turning him on.” They were free from 
that, and for the nonce rich in the joint possession of 
over five pounds. It should have been more, but they 
m 


128 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


had each been compelled to pay the agent five dollars 
for the right to become cattlemen: there were many 
homesick Englishmen and foreign “ stiffs ” to compete 
for the work and free passage. They were more con- 
fident in London than they would have been in New 
York; the Flegel debates had too often centred round 
the tariff to allow them to ignore that five pounds was 
a sum on which two careful aliens might in England live 
for a month. Thus their first day in London was spent 
in looking for lodgings rather than for work. 

“ Let us go away from the river,” said Kalisch. 

“No more river, no more boats?” said Warsch 
facetiously. “We had better not, though, we ought to 
get work at the docks. At least you could. I’m for 
the fur trade again, dust, smell, pricked fingers. You 
for cramp in the legs and blisters on the back. Eh, old 
friend? ” 

But already Kalisch was walking north, beginning 
the endless exploration of unclean main streets and dark 
lanes which were for many days to occupy and amaze 
his mind. Together they discovered the enormous area 
of East London, the atrocious similarity of its great 
tram-laid streets, the equal filth of its byways, its odd 
charm too, which so suddenly took at the end of an alley 
the shape of an eighteenth-century cottage tumbling into 
picturesque ruin behind a garden where sooty perennials 
thrust up their stumps into the cold, misty air. To- 
gether, in their difficult search for work, they gathered 
some knowledge of Stepney, Hackney, Limehouse, 
Whitechapel, of their dark courts and gaudy music- 
halls, of their perpetual alternation of street-market 
and brilliant shop, factory and public house. They 
went further afield too, through Rotherhithe and 
Bermondsey to the Elephant and Castle, there to be 


LONDON TOWN 


129 


bewildered, to lose their way and unexpectedly cross the 
Thames at Westminster. The discovery of Oxford 
Street made them Londoners. 

“ I understand now,” said Warsch ; “ this street, it 
runs from the east, from where we come, to the west 
where we need not go. Yes, now I understand this 
town.” The big German looked complacently at Peter 
Robinson’s “ store ” ; he was no rebel then, he was too 
glad to have understood London to hate its wealth: he 
had found Oxford Street, the key which unlocks London 
to the foreigner. It interested, fascinated him ; its name 
clung to his memory. Later, when lost in some maze 
of Stepney, he had to reflect before asking his way, for 
his tongue seemed to frame the magic name. It had the 
attraction of all roads that run from east to west, per- 
haps because this is the eternal road all races follow. 

It was some time, though, before Warsch and Kalisch 
revisited Oxford Street, for they had, after a night for 
fourpence in a Stepney doss-house, found a lodging in 
Bethnal Green. Kalisch had very soon realised that the 
docks must be his last resource ; accustomed to the 
steady contracting of Manhattan’s Tims, he had been 
shocked when he witnessed at the dock gates the strug- 
gle, the cursing and the praying of the poor mixture 
that drifts there from shop, factory and oflSce. He had 
in vain been one of the great crowd shepherded by the 
big, well-fed police, who to his surprise seemed to want 
to ease the men’s anxiety ; he had talked amazed to an 
unemployed clerk. This was a small creature with the 
long nose of a rat, upon whose white forehead hung 
lanky strands of black hair. He coughed too, for he 
wore no overcoat over his frayed blue serge suit, tight- 
buttoned at the neck, which made it impossible to tell 
whether he had a shirt. 


130 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


“No good,” said the clerk. As his teeth chattered 
Kalisch saw that a mauve zone hung over each cheek- 
bone. “ No good. There’s too many of us. There’s a 
ship coming in from Ceylon, she’ll want sixty hands 
. . . and here we are . . .” He jerked his head 
like a bird pecking at its feathers. “ Here we are, 
three hundred of us, five men for one job.” He 
coughed. The mauve zones disappeared under a faint 
flush, beads of perspiration appeared on the white fore- 
head, and Kalisch knew why the black strands of hair 
clung to the skin. 

“ But,” said Kalisch gently when the clerk had ceased 
to cough,“ do you think you could carry a bale ? ” 

“ Give me a chance,” said the young man fiercely. 
“ I’d do it every day if I got the chance, but I don’t. 
They don’t like the look of me.” He managed to laugh, 
extended the laugh even, for to find mirth in himself 
was luck. “ No, there’s no room in my trade,” he re- 
plied in answer to another question. “ I’ve done my 
time there. The boys and the foreigners cut a clerk 
out. When they’ve done with the boys they give them 
the chuck, like they did me . . . and we all meet 

here again, or at the casual ward. And we’ll all meet in 
the cemetery by and by. What’s the odds? Won’t mat- 
ter in a hundred years.” He said no more for he had to 
cough ; the wet strands of black hair did not move. 

The cynical cheerfulness of the starving Cockney, 
added to the rest of Kalisch’s knowledge, taught him 
that the docks would not offer him the livelihood he had 
earned in the days of the little Shusquamp under the 
kindly rule of Ganger Tim. He abandoned the docks, 
for Warsch had found work for both, slaughter-house 
cleaning. It was not pleasant work, but it kept its 
man. The strangers had been helped to it through the 


LONDON TOWN 


131 


washerwoman who was their landlady in Satchwell 
Rents. For two shillings a day each Kalisch and 
Warsch, bare-armed and broom in hand, would wash 
down walls and floors, sluice out with hot water the 
drains in which the blood of the cattle had clotted into 
black lumps. Every inch of the stone floor had to be 
scrubbed, the walls to be washed with antiseptics. As 
the hot water carried away the blood a fetid, sickening 
smell rose into the air; they worked on, half overcome 
with nausea; at times a Council Inspector would come 
in, watch their labours a while or draw over the edge 
of a slaughter-pen a fastidious hand. Yet the work 
kept them alive; it was not hard of itself, but exacting 
in its frequency, and often Kalisch had to turn his head 
away as he mopped up the red flow on the floor. 

They were lonely, these two, though they need not 
have been, for Satchwell Rents, as represented by 
Madame Molinot, the washerwoman, was kindly inclined. 
Her heart was great as her flgure; she was French, ex- 
traordinarily voluble and, but for one rapid English 
phrase, mostly incomprehensible. 

“ Why you nevare come in the boutique in the even- 
ing.^ ” she asked. 

“ Well,” said Warsch, “ I am looking for work 
and ...” 

“ Wait a little, wait a little, let me speak,” shrieked 
Madame IMolinot, and immediately lost herself in a lan- 
guage which was probably Entente Cordiale. She 
screamed, waved her large mottled arms; brown eyes 
a-twinkle and black hair a-fly, she made probably bril- 
liant suggestions. The faintest interruption was im- 
mediately overwhelmed by her wild cry, “ Wait a little, 
wait a little, let me speak.” Then, in despair, Warsch 
would laugh, and the two bold laundry girls would laugh 


1S2 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


too, all the while keeping their eyes fixed on the uncon- 
scious Kalisch who patiently waited for Madame 
Molinot to have done. 

“ You see,” said Warsch, “ I am a furrier ...” 

“No, no, wait a little, wait a little . . .” 

“ I am a furrier,” shouted Warsch, “ and I must 
look for work in the evening if I am to find it at all, 
so . . .” 

“ Wait a little, wait a little . . .” 

“ . . . so I must go out ...” 

Madame Molinot opened her mouth, but Kalisch, sud- 
denly inspired, shouted — 

“ No, no, no, wait a little, wait a little, let me speak.” 

Madame Molinot remained with her mouth open, for 
Kalisch had stolen her words. She looked at all of them 
in turn, trying to understand the roars of laughter into 
which they broke. Kalisch was giggling quietly, while 
Warsch openly guffawed; the two laundry girls had 
thrown themselves into each other’s arms and lay upon 
a heap of dirty linen. 

“ Oh . . . oh . . . oh, goolor . . . ’elp . . . ’elp 
. . .” came from their group. 

“I do not see anything drdle in the conversation,’’’ 
she remarked acidly. 

At last, when they could speak again, Kalisch and 
Warsch explained their intentions and consented to at- 
tend what Madame Molinot called “ un hino'^ The 
two girls were looking greedily at Kalisch, for laughter 
had tinted his cheeks with rose. He had to laugh again 
when one of the girls dumbly formed behind her mis- 
tress’s back the magic words — 

“ Wait a little, wait a little, let me speak.” 

The search for work was not very successful. They 
conducted it methodically, having discovered in the 


LONDON TOWN 


133 


London Directory at the Bishopsgate Institute a list of 
all the furriers in the town; but neither the big work- 
shops of Whitechapel nor the dens, half factories, half 
tenements, off the Mile End Road seemed to have room 
for Warsch, even though he could boast of being a 
sorter ; nor did they want the “ apprentice,” Kalisch, 
who had decided to learn the trade. 

It is a good trade,” said Warsch, “ even in England 
you can earn a dollar a day, sometimes two.” He still 
spoke in dollars, though he was painstakingly practising 
with Israel the art of talking in shillings. “ It is not 
too unpleasant, it is hot, dusty, but not exhausting.” 

“ And yet,” said Kalisch, “ we cannot find work. 
Here are we, willing to work, there are beasts in mil- 
lions in Siberia and Canada, there are girls shivering 
because their shoulders are bare. And there is no work 
for us. What do we lack? ” 

Organisation,” said Warsch. 

Voluntary organisation.” 

‘‘ Oh . . . yes ... of course.” Warsch was 
suddenly less secure; voluntary was all very well, but 
the masters were not willing. “ We must recapture 
that which belongs to us,” he summed up. His mind 
was not quite at ease; originally an orthodox Socialist, 
he had been driven into the revolutionary ranks by the 
dockers’ strike, but the memory of the strike was fading 
away, and he insensibly reverted to the old idea that the 
people must capture the parliamentary machine and or- 
ganise production. Voluntary association, according to 
the Anarchist theory, struck his practical mind as diffi- 
cult to realise. Syndicalist outrage as unlikely to create 
the new order. At heart Warsch was a simple man, 
occasionally exasperated, but steady, disinclined to in- 
terfere with the world. 


184 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


“ I don’t want much,” the hig German once confided 
to Kalisch, “ just steady work at a fair wage, enough 
to found a family and bring them up and see them grow 
up educated.” 

“ And enough money to pay your footing at Coney 
Island — well, whatever Coney Island is in London — ■ 
and to buy a frock-coat.? ” 

“ Do you know, Kalisch,” said Warsch, blushing, ‘‘ I 
have often thought I should like to have a frock-coat, 
perhaps even a tall hat. Kolden used to wear them ; it 
looked well. And one does want a wife and children.” 

“ Some do,” said Kalisch at length ; I do not. But 
why should I call you a bourgeois after all.? You are 
entitled to have what you choose ; even to disapprove of 
your desire would, I think, be wrong. To influence, 
without converting, that is immoral ; to frighten, that 
may be necessary ; to kill may be unavoidable. So long 
as one does not desire to exert authority, but merely to 
possess one’s self, one can do no wrong.” 

They talked endlessly, these two, the dreamy Jew for 
whom all possessions were shackles, and the big German 
in the keep of whose heart was a bourgeois establish- 
ment. They were mostly driven out of the workshops 
without a word; once only they found a friend. This 
was a strange creature who mended defective skins in 
Scharlach’s warehouse. Warsch and Kalisch, having 
been turned away, waited aimlessly for a minute, when 
the man suddenly addressed them. He was a tall, nar- 
row-chested fellow of about forty, whose face was yellow 
as parchment; there was an air of sickliness about him 
which the fire of his long black eyes belied. The corners 
of his eyes rose a little towards the thick, straight hair 
that fell in two black masses over his ears. But what 
interested Kalisch most was the man’s expression; the 


LONDON TOWN 


135 


long, thin, curved nose hung over a mouth which black 
beard and rough moustache did not conceal ; it was 
twisted into a permanent sneer and continued by deep 
wrinkles to the base of tho cheekbones. Right and left 
of the mouth the wrinkles hung in circumflex line. 

“No work for you,” he said roughly, “ tac, no, there’s 
no work for you, tac.” 

Israel looked at him intently. The little ejaculation 
“ tac ” sounded familiar, and yet he could not remember 
where he had heard it. 

“ No,” said the man acidly, “ there’s eight of us 
mending skins, ten hours a day. That’s eighty hours. 
But the master won’t have ten men working eight hours. 
We need a revolution, tac.” 

“ Oh, you’re for the social revolution? ” said Warsch. 

The man threw them a quick, hostile look. “ Yes,” 
he said. 

“ So are we,” said Israel ; “ my name is Israel Kalisch. 
I come from the States.” 

“ Do you? It’s a gr-rand country.” 

Israel smiled, for the man had used the words with 
which Cordelli had innocently deceived him three years 
before, but he had spoken them with unmistakable irony. 

“ Yes, a gr-rand country,” added the man. “ I know 
it. I worked in Milwaukee when I was a boy. Worked 
in the Penitentiary too . . . for burning the work- 
shop.” 

“Why did you burn it?” asked Warsch; he was 
uneasy in the presence of this fierce creature whom 
Kalisch was now intently surveying. 

“ It was time a workshop was burned. The masters 
were too rich and too proud; the time had come to 
injure them. Tac, you should have seen it burn.” 

Warsch looked at him more and more uneasily; the 


136 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


creature’s mirth was silent but caused the heavy hair to 
quiver. Suddenly Israel spoke. 

You did well, comrade. Fear alone will compel the 
rich to disgorge. To destroy a little is to hint that you 
can destroy much, and that is power.” 

The man impulsively held out his hand, a skinny, 
yellow thing. “ Good,” he said, “ and it’s pleasant 
work. But I must talk no more, comrade Kalisch, and 
. . . you, Warsch.? . . . and comrade Warsch. My 
name is Zador Leitmeritz. There is no work, but there 
may be work; leave me your address.” 

They saw no more of Leitmeritz for some days, but 
his existence hung over them, compelled them to discuss 
him. Kalisch was delighted with him, but Warsch was 
disturbed: Leitmeritz’s quiet violence, his visible joy in 
destruction frightened him; the man belonged to a breed 
of anarchist he had not met before. He would perhaps 
have persuaded Kalisch to leave the neighbourhood and 
this evil spirit, but Leitmeritz suddenly obtruded himself 
upon them. It appeared that in the month of January 
a general election was stirring all the towns a great deal 
and the rest of Britain a little ; it passed, this spasm of 
fettered desire, over the heads of Warsch and Kalisch, 
as meaningless for them who believed little or not at 
all in Parliaments as it was meaningful for the million 
impotents who daily grew more anxious to record that 
they were for one side because they hated the other. 
Warsch, it is true, could not quite escape the charm of 
the season, the fascination of the denunciatory posters, 
the excitement bred of the presence everywhere of the 
canvassers with their booklets and little lamps; it ap- 
pealed to his sense of contest, and it would have ap- 
pealed to Kalisch too if he had not felt quite certain 
that the game was one of blue-man’s buff, a phrase he 


LONDON TOWN 


137 


had joyfully picked out, without understanding it very 
well, from a mildewed pamphlet dated 1831. It was not 
that his political education was faulty ; he had been del- 
uged with pamphlets and leaflets, which were handed him 
in the street or stuffed through Madame Molinot’s 
letter-slit, and as he read them, instead of following the 
London custom of throwing them away, he knew some- 
thing of British problems. 

“ It is,” he summed up to Warsch, a funny affair. 
As in the States, they wage here civil war in a civil 
manner, and though the English have not the advantage 
of selling their votes openly, they do not seem to be 
able to sell them secretly. For what is the off^er, after 
all, of the majestic Law.? The Liberals offer taxes on 
land, which the landlord will pass on to the tenant, while 
he reaps a profit by reducing his subscriptions to 
charities; they offer freedom to the Chinese, which 
means that these will be forcibly deported from the place 
where they earn good wages ; they offer the people 
religion in cloth-bound books instead of religion bound 
in Russia leather; and they will maintain Free Trade 
for the benefit of those who are not free to live.” 

“ That’s pretty good,” said Warsch, laughing, “ you 
might sell that to the other side.” 

Kalisch shook his red head. 

“ They wouldn’t buy. What I say is true, and there- 
fore not good for the voter. Besides I should have to 
say that they themselves offer nothing at all. They 
promise Tariff Reform . . . and we come from a 
country where Tariff Reform means Free Trade. 
Strange are the contrasts between the political antip- 
odes.” 

The two had little time to concern themselves with the 
election, for they were still, in the intervals of slaughter- 


138 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


house cleaning, tramping from workshop to workshop 
and still in vain. But, one night, the search for work 
took them far across the river where a Labour man 
was alone opposing a Conservative. The district was 
gloomy, being nothing but a network of filthy black 
streets, at the end of which, sometimes, stood pictures- 
quely framed the slender masts of a ship ; here the 
posters were yellow and less specialised than in Bethnal 
Green. 

“ WORKING MEN, VOTE FOR A WORKING 
MAN,” 

and 

“ SEND A MAN FROM THE MASSES TO STOP 
TFIE GRAB OF THE CLASSES.” 

They inspired Warsch with an enthusiasm of which he 
M^as faintly ashamed. But Kalisch shrugged his 
shoulders. 

“ Parliament, dear friend, is an equalising machine. 
The working man sends it a pig and is surprised when 
the animal reappears as a sausage.” 

Warsch had laughed, half convinced, but compelled 
Kalisch to stop a while to listen to a Labour speaker 
who, perched upon a cart, was addressing a little crowd. 
He was a hard-featured man whose short nose with the 
blunt tip revealed his pugnacity ; he was very erect, very 
clean ; his large hands, coarse but white, proclaimed him 
a trade-union official who had fought his way up 
through starvation into plenty. For some minutes they 
listened to the man’s even, harsh voice as he promised 
act after act, acts to regulate hours of labour and con- 


LONDON TOWN 


139 


ditions in factories, the minimum wage, a Right to Work 
bill, old age pensions ; endlessly he seemed to wind about 
them a network of law. They listened, this large dis' 
ciplined crowd, which looked in the half darkness like a 
solid heap of earth. Far away up the side-street 
streamed their homes, small, uniform houses with uni- 
form basements and railings, and chimney-pots and per- 
sonalities all cast in the same moulds. Opposite stood 
an ill-lit public-house at which the speaker pointed at 
times an abhorrent finger. 

“ Place the rights of the people in the hands of the 
people,” he begged. 

In the hands of Parliament,” shouted some one in 
the darkness, that’s a fine thing to do, tac.” 

“ Yes, it is,” said the trade unionist, and he went 
droning on, quoting mangled Gladstone in defence of 
theoretic liberty. Kalisch had turned to Warsch with 
an air of interrogation, but Warsch said nothing, for 
he too recognised the voice and was uneasy. But soon 
the speaker passed to Free Trade, and there was genu- 
ine indignation in his voice as he attacked the new 
system which would make “ the rich richer and the poor 
poorer.” ‘‘ Look at America,” he shouted, and then 
quoted interminable figures of unemployment in New 
York (carefully selecting favourable months and 
trades), of prices and wages, and rises and falls. 
“ Tariff Reform in the States,” he wound up, “ has dug 
its own grave. And now the Unionists want to avail 
themselves of our open harbours to import the corpse 
over here.” 

When the laughter had subsided the voice in the 
darkness cried out — 

“ Have you been in the States ? ” 

‘‘ Yes, I have, and I know. So do others. If any- 


140 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


body else has been in the States I challenge him to come 
and stand up here and prove me wrong.” 

The trade unionist looked pugnaciously into the 
crowd, met Kalisch’s eye. 

“ I have been in the States,” said Kalisch, “ and have 
no love for tariffs.” 

There was a swirl of curiosity as the red-headed Jew 
made his way to the cart and was allowed to climb in. 
As he spoke the bad light from the lamp-post and the 
public-house made his face appear chalky white; his 
eyes seemed quite dark and his mouth almost black, 
shaded as it now was by the sparse red copper of his 
moustache and beard. For several minutes he told the 
condition of the workers in New York, evoking from the 
trade unionist who sat at the side of the cart sonorous 
hear-hears; the crowd looked at him agape, wondering 
a little who he might be and what a dollar was. Kalisch 
painted the picture of his heavy labour, of his desolation, 
lack of work and bad food. 

“ And the trusts,” he went on, ‘‘ the trusts. . . . ” 
He told the tale of his black-listing; there were cries of 
“ Shame! ” the trade unionist’s hard features permitted 
themselves a smile of glee. This was luck, this reward 
of his unconventionality. Suddenly Kalisch stopped, 
and a few giggles and “ go ons ” came from the crowd, 
half of which was sporting and liked the event, while 
the other hoped he would make a fool of himself: it 
would be almost as funny as a street accident. But 
Kalisch had stopped only because his eyes had crossed 
with those of the tall, thin man with the circumflex 
wrinkles. Leitmeritz smiled and Israel suddenly lashed 
himself into fury. 

“But what does it all matter?” he shouted, “the 
American Congress and Senate give you tariffs, the 


LONDON TOWN 


141 


English Parliament gives you none. And yet, all of 
you, Englishmen and Americans, you starve, you are 
without work, you are oppressed. The law can do 
nothing for you but grind you down. Parliaments 
come and go and naught is done . . . save that 
authority is strengthened; away with authority, away 
with Parliament and law. Away with Liberals and 
Unionists, away with Labour when it ceases to labour, 
away with parties and Acts of Parliament. Rise, all of 
you, rise. ...” 

There was a murmur; a few cries came from the 
crowd. Upon the steps of the public-house a tiny girl 
who was fetching the supper beer helped herself to a 
sip. Then, in spite of the Labour man, who was now 
tugging at his coat and perpetually repeating, “ Here, 
I say, stop it,” Kalisch spoke on. In a pause he heard 
Leitmeritz say — 

“ Tac, that is true.” 

Kalisch spoke now to an accompaniment of shouts, 
for his coloured Eastern eloquence excited the crowd. 
He denounced royalty, religion, parliamentarism, he 
begged his hearers to rebel, to burn and sack, to 
frighten Society into convulsions and death. 

‘‘ Here, I say, stop it,” murmured the trade unionists 
desperately. 

“ I have done,” replied Kalisch. The crowd parted 
before him; it was quite silent now, reacting from en- 
thusiasm. Almost bovine in its stupidity, it watched 
the red-headed orator pass by the feeble illumination of 
the public-house with two figures that seemed as odd as 
he, and disappear. Then the trade unionist saw that 
he must recapture his meeting. 

“ You see,” he said smoothly, “ I was right about 
Free trade. ...” 


142 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


II 

Warsch’s anxiety was not warranted by results. He 
feared Leitmeritz, but within a week, had to own that 
he was a friend. The strange, fiery Polish Jew, for 
such he turned out to be, burst in upon them one after- 
noon while they were asleep, rushed through the 
laundry, disregarded the gaping girls and Madame 
Molinot, who vainly begged him to wait a little. He 
forced Warsch and Kalisch from their beds, hurried 
them down. 

« I’ve got jobs for you,” he said, as he shepherded 
them westwards, “ jobs in the shop I go to. Nothing 
special, tac, but it’s not a bad shop. Kohn, in Totten- 
ham Street, he’s a small man, and he’s fired the whole 
bloomin’ show ’cos the cabbage was getting too big, 
tac.” 

“Cabbage?” asked Kalisch blankly. 

“ Cabbage,” said Leitmeritz, “ oh, you’ll find out all 
right.” Then the Pole condescended to smile, and ex- 
plained that this was the excess fur the worker was, by 
the custom of the trade, allowed to keep, provided he 
did not go too far. Apparently Kohn had been unduly 
robbed and, as a result, had engaged Leitmeritz, whom 
he knew, as foreman and wanted several other hands. 
Within two hours Warsch and Kalisch had taken service 
under Kohn, Warsch at twenty- two shillings and 
Kalisch, after some demur, as a learner at fifteen. The 
same day Madame Molinot bade the pair a tearful fare- 
well when they carried away their bundles, loudly re- 
peated the invitation to the “ bino ” ; the necessity of 
finding a lodging made it impossible to wait a little and 
especially to let her speak. Followed by the sorrowful 
glances of the laundry girls, Warsch and Kalisch said 


LONDON TOWN 


1143 


Good-bye; the Bethnal Green Road was here afire with 
naphtha flares, which lit up piles of oranges, there sud- 
denly dark and perilous. 

“We go,” said Warsch solemnly, “ to the West 
End.” The big German was at heart pleased to be 
leaving the east. His sturdy soul rebelled against the 
luxury of the west, but he had been intimately cheered 
by the sight of German names such as Braegger’s in 
Charlotte Street, and of several cafes which looked warm 
and smoky. 

“ Good places for a pipe and a glass of beer in the 
evening,” he confided to Kalisch. But he said no more ; 
he was secretly ashamed of his own materialism; his 
mind was a battlefield on which perpetually warred his 
vision of a reformed humanity and his haunting dream 
of the ideal German home — pipe, beer, wife, children, 
dachs, slippers and big china stove. None of these did 
he find in the room he that night engaged in Cleveland 
Street, that beaten rival of the parade of German Soho, 
Charlotte Street. His room was on the third floor of 
the tall house, on the back, and the largest on that floor, 
for Warsch, with twenty- two shillings a week, could 
afford four shillings rent; in front, in virtue of the 
peculiar architecture of the house, were two small rooms, 
one of which was occupied by Kalisch, for three shillings 
a week, the other by Schund, one of Kohn’s new hands, 
who had found them their quarters. Except that 
Warsch’s room was longer there was little to choose 
between them; all three were furnished in the same way 
— damp and rotten carpet, old iron bed with a mattress 
full of lumps, shaky three-legged table, stained deal 
washstand. Everything was old and faded; the cur- 
tains were discoloured, partly by the sun and partly by 
the infrequent washings which the cheap material had 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


144 

not withstood ; over every article lay a thin film of dust, 
for the rooms had been untenanted for some days, during 
which the landlady, the troglodyte of the basement, had 
not visited them. 

London,” said Kalisch, as he stood by Warsch’s 
side, looking down into the light-speckled well, “ she 
has given us a home after all.” 

‘‘Yes,” said Warsch. He looked critically at the 
window-sill. “ It is broad enough. I must have 
a box here and grow beans, the beans that have red 
flowers.” 

“ I do not like the colour of my walls,” Kalisch mused, 
“ blue flowers on yellow, that is ugly. Ah, I know what 
I should like.” 

“ What would you like? ” Warsch asked; he was sur- 
prised. Never before had he heard Kalisch express a 
personal wish. 

“ I should like a room papered with dark but vivid 
blue, the walls divided every two paces by a panel of 
dead black. I would have a frieze of gold, a black car- 
pet so thick that my feet would vanish in it as in the 
tall grass of a meadow. And there would be no furni- 
ture in it except a heap of blue silk cushions — oh, 
Warsch, such a heap, and so soft that when you lay in 
them you were lost in them, for you would see naught 
but blue silk, and above your eyes the ceiling, painted 
blue, like the sky, but like a starless sky of night where 
glittered a single golden crescent. Perhaps, though, I 
would write on the skin of lambs, squatting upon my 
heels, upon a box covered with gold and black lacquer, 
with quills taken from the rosy wings of the flamingoes, 
with ink I would slowly grind in a dish of jade, black 
ink, black as the mirror that the magician pours into 
the palm of a child. There would be an ever-swinging 


LONDON TOWN 


145 


thurible, where would burn a heavy scent. There would 
be clothing of red and gold, of damask and silk, and 
rare black skins and the skins of tigers with open- jawed 
heads, and swords that made lightning if I swung them ; 
there would be sweets so sweet that they sickened my 
tongue, and vinegar in jars, and brown dishes half full 
of pale oil in which floated the flesh of goats ; and there 
would be a woman with eyes like black opals, with a 
mouth like a pomegranate, whose skin would here be 
white as marble, there yellow as old ivory. She would 
sing, softly for ever, as her thin brown fingers with the 
purple fingernails filled with golden tobacco long pipes 
all banded with copper and red clay. . . 

He stopped, and Warsch threw him a sidelong glance. 
Israel stood with both hands on the window-sill, gazing 
at a gaunt black house far away, where lights glimmered 
through the evening mist; his red mouth hung open, a 
mass of copper hair had fallen over his white forehead; 
his eyes, dilated and immense, were full of longing. The 
big German wondered how he ought to answer this ex- 
traordinary tirade, decided that he ought to oppose the 
absurd dream. For the first time he became conscious 
(it was too much to say that he understood) that there 
were three men in Israel. One was an exiled voluptuary 
who hungered for the fat land of his fathers, who blindly 
held out his hands to their tents of hides, their black- 
browed women, even to the noisy chaffering of their trad- 
ing streets ; another was a cold and dispassionate 
philosopher, making notes upon humanity; a third was 
a fanatic whose heart was bursting with pity for suffer- 
ing humanity, with love in which there was no place for 
fine clothes, the light of jewels and the love of woman. 

‘‘ But,” he said at length, “ I thought you didn’t like 
women.” 


146 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


Kalisch started, looked at him as if he were waking 
up from a. trance. 

“Women . . he faltered, “ no . . . with me 
there is no room for women. That woman was a dream. 
Of course, a dream. But you, Warsch, do you never 
dream Is there nothing you want in this room, unless 
it be that wife and those babies . . . not forget- 

ting the top hat.?^ ” 

“ No,” said Warsch, after looking critically at the 
rickety, early-Victorian furniture illumined by a candle, 
“ nothing but those things.” Then, after a pause, he 
inconsequently added : “ This room faces east, but it is 
sheltered; the beans would grow. I wonder whether I 
could keep a bird. Why do you laugh, Kalisch.? ” 

“For nothing, nothing,” murmured Kalisch, as his 
laughter ceased, “ for nothing at all, happy man.” 


Ill 

The house in Cleveland Street wasted no accommoda- 
tion. Above the landlady’s basement, whence she 
emerged but once a week to collect rents severely in 
advance, for neither attendance nor linen was given such 
minor lodgers as Kalisch and Warsch, was the shop of 
Cazot, the French frame-maker. All day, as he cut up 
his wood and with delicate care laid on the fine gold 
flakes, he sang the merry songs he had learned in the 
regiment. There always was a noise at Cazot’s; it 
came from his plane and hammer, from his continual 
arguments with his English apprentice, who could be 
heard protesting that most duties were “ not his work,” 
from his conversations with his pretty, dark wife, 
Celestine, carried on from front door to backyard, above 


LONDON TOWN 147 

all from the songs into which he continually broke as he 
worked, bugle calls, marching songs — 

“ Le p’tit jour vient d’ se montrer, 

Le reveil sonne au quartier. 

Car ce matin Ton va faire 
Une marche militaire. 

D’mi tour! En avant! Marche! 

Le regiment est en marche . . 

But even Cazot’s songs were often drowned by the 
quarrels and trampling of the Swiss and German waiters 
who thronged up the stairs to the employment agency 
on the first floor. On the stairs they sometimes settled 
for hours at a time, waiting to be interviewed and hired 
by boarding houses as waiters, knife-boys and boot-boys 
for six to ten shillings a week. There they ate, drank, 
played cards and made bold advances to the daughter 
of the big family on the second floor and to the demure, 
neat wife of the French cabinet-maker in the second floor 
back. The second floor was the centre of overcrowding, 
for its four rooms sheltered the family of four; the 
French cabinet-maker and his wife ; a German clerk W'ho, 
on Sundays, wore a frock-coat, a tall hat and yellow 
boots; and an old English white-bearded printer, who 
lived by obscure jobs which often kept his feeble hand- 
press busy far into the night. Above again were but 
three rooms, for the back room had not, as on the second 
floor, been partitioned into tw^o; there slept Warsch, 
Kalisch and Schund, their sponsor. 

Three months had passed. The rawness of the win- 
ter was over and Kalisch began to feel the promise of 
spring, the hope of summer, so grateful and so necessary 
to his soul. He was happy enough in Cleveland Street ; 


148 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


every night almost, all through the winter, though there 
was no grate in his room, and no money for coal, he had 
sat on the pensionable chair at the three-legged table, 
reading, his face in his hands and his hair very near the 
candle. His freedom from nationality, his Jewish 
capacity for sloughing environment had enabled him to 
plunge at once into English authors; he had read with 
his old lack of discrimination everything he had heard 
of or accidentally found. Bacon's Essays^ old volumes of 
The Spectator, most of Shakespeare’s plays, McCar- 
thy’s History of Our Own Times, He had thrilled with 
the Chartists, with Felix Holt, with Burns at Tower 
Hill; all this, borrowed from the Free Library and 
jumbled with the newspapers he chose to read, most 
varied, for he favoured The Labour Leader no more 
than The Times, served to extend and complicate him, 
to strengthen his conviction that all systems of govern- 
ment were evil, to make him more certain that history 
was but a chronicle of butchery, religion a veil of hum- 
bug, and Parliament a narcotic. He read alone, late 
into the night ; he could have shared the large room with 
Warsch, but now he was beginning to think that solitude 
was necessary, perhaps complete solitude, if he wished to 
clarify his mind. 

“ It would be good for all of us,” he one day said to 
Warsch, “ if every year, for a whole month, we each 
retired to an island or to a mountain peak, there to 
think undisturbed of the cosmos and our place in it.” 

Warsch had laughed, for this was not his idea of life. 
He was no dullard; essentially he believed in the social 
revolution, but he could not help rejoicing in the little 
saloons near Fitzroy Square, where he drank beer with 
barbers and waiters, ate splendid blood-sausage and ham 
at the monthly schlachtfest, and joined with them in 


LONDON TOWN 


149 


singing 0 Tannenbaumy sometimes hymns, even Stille 
Nachty Heilige Nachty the Christmas carol. Warsch 
generally went out with Schund. Their neighbour was 
a short, square German, with a peculiarly brutal flat 
face; his light eyes, his tangled fair moustache, his short 
neck inspired fear and repulsion; the back of his head 
seemed to continue straight into his shoulders. He 
would lurch forward heavily, seldom smiling and mostly 
silent; when with Warsch he was never carried away by 
the other’s gaiety. He would sit near him, looking at 
him with an air of stupid satisfaction, the Fliegende 
Blaetter before him, open and untouched. At the end 
of the evening, having drunk at least twice as much beer 
as Warsch, he would silently lurch back wuth him. 
Kalisch could hear him fall upon his bed, no doubt fully 
dressed; within a few minutes he could hear him snore, 
snuffle rather, like a pig. 

Yet Schund, in spite and perhaps because of his brute 
stupidity, was one of their revolutionary band. Some- 
times, when politics were talked in the workshop in 
Kohn’s absence, Schund would state his views. 

“ We ought to blow up the bourgeois. . . . Rava- 
chol he was a fine fellow, he was; he was a fine fellow, 
Ravachol, he was; Ravachol, he was ...” 

Again and again he would repeat the words as he 
regularly passed the dyebrush up and down a skin of 
mink, until little by little the sentence became a growl, 
a murmur. The others took no notice of him ; he was 
too brutalised to be worth talking to and Warsch did 
not invite his society, but Schund had elected to love 
the cheerful new hand and had to be tolerated, much as 
a big and sulky dog. The thick animal was valuable 
to Kohn; his heavy spatulate fingers were extraordi- 
narily expert when it came to dyeing rabbit and cat 


150 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


skins : he could bleach them or make them akin to sable ; 
he could, by manipulating the fine paint-brush, give 
black tips to brown furs, transform white rabbit into 
ermine. It was wonderful to watch this machine as it 
quickly cleansed the skins with salts or alkali, tinted 
them then to the shade of his model with an accuracy so 
complete that Kohn himself was sometimes deceived. 

The work of Kohn’s five hands was specialised. 
Schund had practically a monopoly of dyeing; Leit- 
meritz, in addition to his general duties as foreman, 
made up the more complicated pieces such as muffs and 
coats ; he left the stoles to Warsch and to Perekop, both 
of whom were also allowed to cut and mend defective 
skins; as for Kalisch, the apprentice of the party, he 
was given minor work such as soaking, stretching and 
kneading skins which had lost their pliability. The 
work was not oppressive, though it was as yet winter and 
trade was good; nor was it uncertain, for Kohn kept 
down his labour force so as to find full employment for 
it even in the summer, when he would have orders from 
the cheaper big shops for imitations to be ‘‘ disposed of 
at reduced price ” at the sales. He believed in keeping 
his trained men. 

The five sat or stood at two heavy tables, deeply 
grooved by age, except where the grooves had been 
filled with dirt; the windows were so filthy as to be 
opaque except where peepholes had been scratched, and 
they were never opened, even though the stove grew all 
day hotter and hotter, sometimes red. The five worked 
contentedly enough from eight to eight, in an atmos- 
phere fetid with animal odours and that of their un- 
washed bodies ; there was an unusual unity of opinion 
and taste among them, which found voice when Mr. 
Kohn was out on some business mission, such as captur- 


LONDON TOWN 


151 


ing trade orders or buying at Lampson’s and at the 
Hudson Bay sales. Except on those days when Mr. 
Kohn sorted a parcel he was seldom seen, but sorting 
was a great and wonderful affair. He would strip to 
his shirt and trousers, stand important and enormously 
fat, in the midst of his attentive staff, with an anxious 
frown on his round olive face while his keen black eyes 
scrutinised skin by skin the rough classification made by 
Leitmeritz and Warsch. 

‘‘ No,” he would say shortly as he rejected a skin, 
‘‘ prima for this.” 

“ I don’t think it’s long enough in the hair, guv’nor,” 
replied Leitmeritz. 

‘‘ Never mind, risk it. And, Warsch, look here, this 
ain’t mink at all.” 

“ It was in the parcel.” 

“Then what is it.?^ I dunno what it is. Schwindel 
probably. Take it away. Hair on hair, Kalisch, you 
verdammter fool, don’t crush, don’t crush. ...” 

And Kohn would stamp with fury, tear away the 
skins. There would be protests and chaos; the Boston 
Extra Black Fine Large would become mixed with the 
Boston Extra Brown Fine Large. 

“ I’ll sack you, sack you,” Kohn roared. 

But at last the dust would subside, the heaps of skins 
become defined, half-a-dozen skins be set aside as inter- 
mediates. Kalisch, being the best penman, would then 
have to write out the labels for each of the seven qual- 
ities, beat, comb the pelts, exclude torn skins, thread the 
nostrils with string. He hated these sorting days, for- 
tunately infrequent, for Kohn, when he had bought three 
or four hundred fitch for the cheap trade for fifty or 
sixty pounds, became hysterical with anxiety, convinced 
that he had been swindled, 


152 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


“ Look at them,” he would roar, and his oily face 
would drip with sweat, ‘‘look at the schweinerei, there 
won’t be two hundred primes, there won’t be a hundred ; 
they’re thirds, all of them. Achy du lieher Gott . . . 
what a life. I shall be ruined . . . that’s a prime, 
that, yes, yours, Warsch . . . are you trying to bust 
the shop? what do you want? to make me sell a prime 
for a bob? ” 

At last, in apoplectic fury, Kohn would rush out of 
the shop, leaving* the final sorting to Warsch and Lelt- 
meritz, who worked on quite calmly, for they knew very 
well that he would return in the afternoon, and beam 
when he discovered that the parcel contained eighty- 
three per cent, of primes of sundry sizes, as opposed to 
a previous eighty. 

The spirit of the place became manifest to Kallsch a 
few days after his engagement. The five hands were 
busy in an atmosphere already thick with dust. Leit- 
meritz, bending over the table, was measuring up 
musquash skins with enormous care from the paper pat- 
tern of a coat; he was absorbed, and Kalisch could see 
his thick, black eyebrows meet as he calculated, his 
mouth set and throw out the circumflex wrinkles ; 
Schund, also silent, was delicately tinting with a paint- 
brush imperfect places in an old stone marten stole. 
But Warsch and Perekop were talking as they worked 
respectively at defective minks, of which Kohn had 
bought a large parcel for a few pounds. As Kalisch 
mechanically tramped in the cask a dozen stone martens 
which were too dry to dress, he watched the curious face 
of Perekop, the Russian. Kalisch, red and perspiring, 
stood knee-deep in the cask, to which he was practically 
pinioned by a cloth the object of which was to keep the 
room free of sawdust. Under his hot, bare feet was the 


LONDON TOWN 


153 


soft mass of skins, sewn fur to fur, buttered and covered 
with sawdust ; as he tramped gently up and down, 
hardly knowing that he did so, he could analyse every 
detail of Perekop’s face, note its flatness, its yellowness, 
his high cheekbones and slanting eyes, above all his 
short, straight, black hair which stood away from his 
head like that of a Chinese doll. Perekop threw back 
to some Tartar ancestor; he talked now, in good if 
scanty English, in a soft, almost warbling voice. 

“ Yes,” said Perekop, “ I do not mind telling you. It 
is not a long story. That was when I worked in Khar- 
kov. I had finished my work and I was going home; I 
lived in an isha outside the town, it was cheaper, you 
know, because I had to walk four versts every morning 
and night.” 

‘‘ What is four versts.? ” asked Warsch. 

“ One hour. Oh, I must not cut this.” Perekop 
brought the skin to Leitmeritz, who took it from him, 
saying he would cut it himself. There was no sound 
save the dull trampling of Kalisch’s feet until Perekop 
resumed his tale. “ It was dark and I was afraid on the 
road, though I prayed at every ikon by the way, when 
I saw a light coming; I was frightened, for you know 
the dead souls walk in the night in great golden lights 
. . . do not laugh, friend . . . but then I 

heard the bells, ding, ding, the bells of a troyha. It 
came rolling, three fine grey horses, driven by a barin, 
with other harms in the troyka, young gentlemen from 
the university. I had a lantern in my hand; they saw 
me and stopped. Ah, a mujik,^^ cried the young barin 
who was driving. “ Hard is thy hair as a mop ; come 
with us.” And before I could say anything the young 
barins had dragged me into the troyka. “ My wife, 
barin,'' I cried, but they laughed, and the barin in front 


154 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


whipped the grey horses and drove me back to Kharkov. 
They were laughing and talking French or German, 
I do not know. They took me to a fine place, where 
were more barins drinking, and fine ladies with naked 
shoulders. They were all young and rosy, and they 
pulled my beard — I had a beard then — and they made 
me drink vodka and something yellow that bubbled like 
soda-water. Ah, it was good, though I did not know 
what it was.” 

“ Champagne, you dirty fool,” said Leitmeritz, look- 
ing up. 

“ Champagne ^ Da-da, I did not know. But I 
drank. And then again I drank vodka, and more of the 
yellow drink. And the fine ladies with the naked shoul- 
ders stood with the barins while I was on the table tread- 
ing on glass. I laughed, oh, I know I laughed, and I 
talked.” 

‘‘ Like a drunken pig,” said Leitmeritz in even tones. 

“ But next morning when I woke up I was in a little 
room, on straw. And my head hurt. Da-da, that was 
bad. But then came two policemen, and a barin in 
green, with gold upon his collar and a sword. ‘ Did 
you say that the poor should have vodka free?’ asked 
the barin in green, reading from a piece of paper. ‘ I 
do not know,’ I said. ‘ And did you say that if the 
rich were not so rich the poor could not be so poor ? ’ 
asked the barin in green. I said, ‘ I do not know.’ 
‘ Who are the friends who told you these things? ’ asked 
the barin in green. ‘ Oh, for Christ’s sake believe me,’ 
I said, ‘ I have no friends.’ ‘ Beat him until he con- 
fesses,’ said the barin in green. They beat me with 
sticks upon the back, three or four more policemen came 
in, they beat me upon the soles of the feet. I screamed, 
but still they beat me; always they asked the names of 


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155 


my friends, and I cried that I did not know. I did not 
remember. Perhaps I had heard the words somewhere. 
When they had beaten me enough, they locked me up in 
a little room that was dark and where there was water 
on the floor. Every day they beat me. They came 
only to beat me, except to give me black bread. At last 
they took me to a place where there were many harins 
in black. I did not understand what they said, I could 
only say that I did not know.” 

“ Fool,” said Leitmeritz, ‘‘ why did you not lie.^ ” 

“ How could I lie ? ” Perekop fixed on the Pole in- 
genuous eyes. Kalisch, gripped at the heart, no longer 
tramped the skins; Warsch too had ceased to work. 
Schund alone brutishly went on tinting his fur. 

“ They took me out on the market-place, and they 
beat me with the knout until the skin was hanging from 
my back upon my trousers. Then they put me in a hos- 
pital until I was well. And then they put me on a boat 
that went to England. I was very sick upon the sea. 
Do you not think it difficult sometimes to understand 
why God does not save His children pain ? ” 

A cackle of laughter came from Leitmeritz, but 
Kalisch held both hands against his breast, could hardly 
see through his wet eyes. 

The door opened; a small and very fat boy, aged 
about fourteen, a striking miniature of Mr. Kohn, peered 
through the opening. 

Guvnor out ? ” he asked in a fat voice, looking fear- 
fully out of his round, black eyes. 

“Yes, Mr. Isaac,” said Warsch. 

“ Then, Perekop, you play the balalaika.” 

“ I can’t, Mr. Isaac, I have got these skins . . .” 

“ Oh yes, Perekop,” cried the boy. “ Do play the 
balalaika.” 


156 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


“ Well, for five minutes.” 

The mujik went to a corner, took from it the old 
guitar-like instrument and, sitting down by the window, 
softly played the air of the old folk-song, ‘‘ Over the 
river, the soft flowing river, bends the weeping willow.” 
There were no interruptions. Eat little Isaac stood 
squarely in the doorway, with his chubby hands in his 
pockets, his head inclined. The gentle, melancholy 
melody slowly flowed over him, soothing his brisk little 
brain. There were steps on the stairs; an enormously 
stout woman in dirty yellow silk tiptoed in, followed by 
three dark little girls. All of them, Mrs. Kohn and her 
children, crowded together. Perekop was not looking 
at them. With slanting eyes far away, his yellow face 
rapt, the mujik let his fingers wander free over the 
strings, from which now came sorrowful songs — “ In 
a pine forest roamed a riderless horse,” and “ At the 
door stood the horses of the unwilling bride ” — the 
songs of his harsh mother country, of her dry, dusky 
fields, and of the wistful passion of her hot, short sum- 
mers. 

Unstirred and with steady fingers Schund added to his 
black paint a little Prussian blue. 


CHAPTER II 


A KNIGHT FROM BRONDESBURY 

I 

Over the “ Bar de la Republique,” which in Little 
Goodge Street attempts by means of a zinc-lined counter, 
little tables, a caisse with bowls of fruit and sugar and 
exceedingly dirty bottles, to appear truly French, lived 
Leitmeritz and Sonia Maslov. These two were rich 
among their fellows, for Leitmeritz earned twenty-eight 
shillings a week and helped himself to “ cabbage ” in a 
way Kohn would never have tolerated had he not known 
that his coat hand was worth twelve shillings a week 
more than he gave him ; besides, Sonia, whose work in 
a jam factory near by consisted in pot-washing and 
steaming, brought in another ten shillings a week. She 
was a determined, short Russian who looked old for 
twenty-five and young for thirty-five; her swarthy com- 
plexion was bad, her nose thick, her brown mouth thick, 
her ears, her hands thick. Under her tangled black hair, 
some of which always tumbled on her shoulders, her 
black eyes glistened below her heavy brows; there was 
about her no feminine grace, for her blouses were never 
clean and never buttoned; her badly hitched skirts, al- 
ways stained with grease, dragged as she walked over 
her dirty, downtrodden boots. She had adopted Leit- 
meritz in the lodging-house where he stayed when he ar- 
rived from America, made of him a pet very much in 
the spirit of one who might tame a snake. She had 
found in his quick bitterness a contrast to her own heavi- 
ness which was not stupidity, clung to him with silent 
157 


158 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


determination, and established herself with him. Leit- 
meritz had snarled. 

“ Curse you,” he remarked when she first arrived with 
a dented iron trunk. “ I don’t want you. I hate you. 
I hate everybody, tac.” 

“ You don’t hate me,” said Sonia stolidly. “ I don’t 
care what you say. Shut your mouth while I make you 
a stew.” 

Leitmeritz cursed her, ate the stew, into which she 
put more grease than meat and let drop an occasional 
hair. He cursed her again, went out. When he re- 
turned from one of his favourite walks along the Bethnal 
Green Road, where he used to stride along with his 
fiercest sneer on his face, mumbling curses at the shops 
and the police, Sonia was mending his oldest trousers. 
Her coolness pleased him. She stayed. Five years 
later, in Little Goodge Street, she was still there. 
There was no tenderness in their relation ; that she was 
woman for him, the only woman he knew, did not seem 
to matter to Leitmertitz; he had grown used to her, 
and hated her because he needed her. 

“ Curse you,” he would often say, “ I don’t like you. 
I don’t like anybody ; if I do like any people I hate them 
for it. One should like nobody.” 

‘‘ I don’t care,” Sonia invariably replied, “ you can’t 
do without me, Zadoc. You can say what you like, 
you’re my man.” Then she would pat his thick black 
hair or stroke his yellow hand. 

“ Psha Kreff” ^ Leitmeritz would shout, take your 
hands off me.” But he never pushed her away. Taci- 
turn and brutalised as they were, these two were lovers 
and indissolubly bound together. 

It was in Leitmeritz’s dirty living-room that the Club 
1 “ Blood of a dog.” 


LONDON TOWN 


159 


began to meet. His two rooms were really but one and 
a half, for the bedroom had no window of its own and 
was not ventilated. But ventilation troubled neither 
Leitmeritz nor Sonia ; the living-room window was pasted 
up with strips of newspaper while the range, full loaded 
with coal, was allowed to redden. Among the litter of 
dirty saucepans and unwashed plates, of boots and torn 
clothing heaped in corners, stood a big deal table stained 
in many colours by every kind of drink; on the rotten 
boards lay strips of carpet which, if shaken, would have 
filled the room with dust. But they had not been shaken 
since they had been laid down, nor had any articles other 
than dishes been washed. This was not remarkable, for 
no water was laid on; every day Sonia had to fetch a 
bucketful from the tap in the back-yard, which she often 
did too late for Leitmeritz to wash his face. This did 
not occupy him ; neither he nor. Sonia thought of chang- 
ing their linen oftener than once a fortnight, when a 
wash became convenient and opportune. 

The Club, however, was not fastidious and did not 
seem concerned with the ever-present smell of food and 
soiled clothing; certainly Kalisch, whose washing was 
erratic, did not care, nor did Perekop, who always 
seemed lost in his own thoughts, nor Schund, who ap- 
peared devoid of any ; Warsch, whose burly body always 
seemed to suggest soap, who carefully shaved his pink 
cheeks every day, occasionally growled, but Israel sum- 
med up the situation philosophically. 

“ It doesn’t smell so bad after five minutes. You get 
used to it, like to everything.” 

The other guests of the Club, two in number, were 
buttressed up by their enthusiasm against the unpleas- 
antness. One was Ekaterina Toromin, a student of 
medicine, who had met Leitmeritz in the East End and 


160 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


become his friend because his ferocity responded to hers. 
Ekaterina was a striking beauty aged about twenty- 
four; her heavy black hair, cut short a little above the 
shoulders, was brushed away from her broad white fore- 
head, under which lay the immense grey ness of her eyes. 
Her pale face made her small mouth, always fiercely com- 
pressed, appear almost purple; her sharp, pointed chin 
jutted a little forward. Concentrated, fiery, speaking 
always in a low, intense voice, she surprised nobody when 
she related in a few words how she had fired at Pobie- 
donostzeff. 

“ It was time somebody freed Russia from that senile 
viper. I shot at him three times outside Tula Station ; 
I was unfortunate, for I did no worse than pierce his 
coat. What luck for the Holy Synod! But, pah! they 
could not send to Siberia the daughter of General Toro- 
min. So they threw me across the frontier and said I 
had escaped. Cowards ! They had not even the courage 
to flog me, for I was a lady, a harinya! ” 

Following Ekaterina was always Lydotchka, a little 
fair girl who studied with her at the Royal Free. 
Lydotchka had neither views nor desires; she adored 
Ekaterina, and took her opinions as laws. Ekaterina 
having declared herself an Anarchist, Lydotchka did 
likewise, entered the Club and bravely tried not to mind 
the smell which Ekaterina did not seem to notice. It 
was enough for her, when the men smoked and drank 
English beer, or endlessly talked of things she hardly 
understood, to watch upon the dirty table Ekaterina’s 
outstretched hands. For Ekaterina had pride in her 
beautiful, long, white hands with the perfect pink finger- 
nails, which she often manicured as she told some harsh 
tale of pogroms and knoutings, or laid flat upon the 
table to gaze at with a rapt air. 


LONDON TOWN 


161 


In a sense there was no club. There could be no rules, 
for Anarchism allowed of none, and the threat of any, 
which could have come only from Warsch’s bureaucratic 
mind, would have broken up the voluntary group. It 
was tacitly understood that Leitmeritz’s room was open 
to them, that it would be warmed and that current copies 
of Freedom, Justice, The Herald of Freedom and La 
Guerre Sociale, together with an occasional Freiheit or a 
Czas, would lie on the dirty table. Apart from Kalisch, 
who was essentially a solitaire Anarchist, and the 
Russian girls, who appeared to spend alternate even- 
ings in Little Goodge Street and in Mayfair, most of 
the comrades came in every night; even Warsch, on his 
way to some beer cellar, would come in, heavily ask Sonia 
how the baby was, solely to irritate Leitmeritz, for they 
had no child and desired none. When there was a large 
gathering, little by little the dirt and the smoke seemed 
to matter less as Kalisch, flushed and excited, Ekaterina 
taut as a steel wire, contradicted each other on points 
as to which they were fully agreed. There were hot 
duels between these two. Schund seldom spoke, but sat 
heavily in a corner, his lustreless eyes fixed upon 
Ekaterina, for whom he harboured a sullen passion; 
Perekop, while sometimes breaking in with vague rhap- 
sodies, was usually busy with a pencil and little pieces of 
paper on which he worked out lengthy calculations. 
For Perekop kept as secret as he could a taste all the 
comrades knew him to have: the dreamy mujik backed 
horses for a shilling at a barber’s in Charlotte Street. 

“ It is possible to win,” he confided to Warsch one 
day, when the big German begged him not to waste his 
money, but to put it into the savings bank, “ only you 
must read the signs.” 

“What signs? where are they?” 


162 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


“ Everywhere,” said Perekop solemnly ; “ in the clouds 
that drift above the houses, and the birds that fly in the 
Whitefield garden. Oh, there are signs everywhere, for 
those who can read them. Not a dog may lift his head 
without the goodwill of the Lord ; you need but to read, 
for as there is fate for all things, so can fate be fore- 
seen.” 

“But how do you read them.?” cried Warsch. He 
was exasperated by this nonsense. Perekop threw him 
a swift glance of suspicion. 

“ Never mind,” he said deflantly, “ it is not for un- 
believers.” 

Nobody ever knew how Perekop read the signs, but he 
did not seem to win. 

Ekaterina and Kalisch did not take much notice of 
him, or indeed of their comrades in general. They were 
both solitaires, and accepted the society of their fellows 
solely because they were theorists ; Ekaterina had been 
a militant, but in England she accepted the custom 
in virtue of which direct action was not to be taken 
against the country of asylum, while Israel was still 
uncertain as to the value of political assassination. 
This, perhaps, was the only point on which Ekaterina 
differed from the handsome young apostle. 

“ None but a craven,” she once said in her low, 
melodious voice, “ hesitates to strike a blow for the 
oppressed.” She laid upon the table her long, white 
hands, gazed at them, then resumed the attack. “ The 
knife, the bullet, the bomb, those are the answers to the 
gaol, the knout and the halter. Force against force. 
Death against death. Blood for blood, say I, and a 
barrel of it for every good cupful they draw from 
heroes.” 

“ I do not say you are wrong,” replied Kalisch. The 


LONDON TOWN 


163 


young Jew looked meditatively at the beautiful, fierce 
girl ; though but twenty-two he looked at her unmoved, 
too dreamy, too sunk in thought to be attracted to her. 
In earlier years he had fought out the battle of sex, dis- 
covered later that it might deflect him from his purpose, 
which was then to learn and to know ; he resigned it with 
a slight effort, but soon woman became a stranger to 
him, as woman a misty figure, no more and no less than 
his fellow man. And though he had never discussed his 
attitude with Ekaterina, it insidiously angered her that 
she could not attract this youth, now daily growing in 
beauty, whose red beard now reduced the disproportion 
of his nose and mouth. 

‘‘ None but a craven,” she repeated, and unconsciously 
took from her belt an ivory spatula with which she deli- 
cately pushed back the flesh from one of her nails. 

“ I do not say you are wrong,” said Kalisch again, 
“ but I do not say you are right. You may not agree 
with me, but I think there are few things right or 
wrong ; all that is wrong is trying not to see right, that 
is where the world is foolish. And as for killing, I quite 
understand, and I know very well that force helps 
reform ; I know that in this countr}^ the Mansion House 
Relief Fund trebled in a day because they tore up the 
railings of Hyde Park ; I know that the Duma, whatever 
good it may be, but yet a sign of authority’s fear, came 
out of riots ; but I am not so certain that murder is as 
good as riots, as strikes.” 

“ Strikes,” said Leitmeritz, and his circumflex wrinkles 
became deeper as he sneered, tac, what’s that.? starving 
so that wages may go up and prices go up, so that we 
pay a shilling more a week to get ninepence.” 

“ I did not say strikes were the solution of all troubles, 
Leitmeritz,” said the young apostle very gently, as if 


164 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


reproving a child ; “ all I think is that they train the 
workers, teach them how to make revolution. You must 
learn revolution as you learn the violin, and if it costs 
you something, that is only the price of the lesson. But 
murder is different. I agree that it would be good if 
to-day Nicolas, Franz Joseph, Roosevelt and the others 
were to be slain, but I do not agree that these are worth 
the fine lives they would cost. Henry, Vaillant, Rava- 
chol, Caserio died under the guillotine, Angiolillo was 
garroted for the sake of the worthless Canovas, Csolgosz 
went to the chair because he rid us of MacKinley, while 
Luccheni, mad and like the beasts, lies rotting in a cellar 
where rats run on the wet floor.” 

“ Heroes,” said Ekaterina. 

A confused growling came from Schund, whose eyes 
did not leave hers; Warsch, awkward and hesitant, said 
nothing, while Perekop could be heard murmuring, 
“ Second in the third race means first in the fifth. Now, 
if seven clouds fly east ...” 

“Yes, they were heroes,” repeated little Lydotchka, 
glancing at Ekaterina to be sure she was saying the 
right thing. 

“ They were heroes,” said Kalisch in a hushed voice, 
“ and were worthy of life. Yet they gave it up, they, 
the beautiful and noble, the rare, they who came but 
as single swallows, to take life from common men, kings, 
dullards in authority, men who spring up like mushrooms 
and could be replaced by the bribe of gold and power 
from any stock-exchange or club.” 

There was a silence as conviction sank into their 
minds. But Ekaterina, pale with fury and open- 
mouthed, struck the table with her small, bony 
fist. 

“ They died well. The blood of the martyrs is the 


LONDON TOWN 


165 


seed of the cause. Others will rise if some fall. It is 
only when men cease to rise that their sons cease to rise. 
Rise, kill, that is the policy. And not only in wretched 
Russia, but here in bloated, fat England, who sweats 
gold and eats gold, where women make chains and men 
sell flowers, where thirteen millions live on the edge of 
starvation, where drama and literature are not even 
hated because the English are too stupid to understand 
them, where there is commerce instead of beauty, osten- 
tation instead of grace, where the poor are drunk and 
the rich are drugged. And they too have a king, less 
hateful than many another, but yet a king, a thing to be 
removed.” 

“ Sipido,” snarled Leitmeritz. 

“ Yes, even another Sipido, feeble-minded boy though 
he was. And away with this pretence of respect : Eng- 
land shelters us because she is insolent; she brags that 
she is the land of liberty, but that is merely an insult 
added to the sufferings of the oppressed. If she under- 
stood she would deport us, but she is stupid, this great 
whale.” 

“ She is stupid,” Lydotchka conscientiously repeated. 

“ Yes, she is stupid,” said Kalisch, “ and that is why 
she is so hopeless. There is a better chance where there 
are enemies, as in Russia and Austria, where they keep 
us down, in France, Spain, Italy, where they understand 
us because they are like us. But here they are neither 
hot nor cold. I have read of the great Englishmen, 
Jack Cade, Ball, Wat Tyler, and of the stupid people 
who would not follow, but that is long ago. The Eng- 
lish are asleep, for Cromwell the tyrant and the big 
fool Hampden, who believed in Parliament, and that man 
Gladstone, who thought that the pulpit and the Speak- 
er’s chair were the same thing, they are the people who 


166 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


put her to sleep. Let her sleep, then, while we live on 
her and prepare for the day.” 

Israel was standing up, his white face outlined against 
the dirty whitewashed wall by the red mass of his hair 
and beard, which glittered in the candle-light ; his great 
blue eyes seemed to cover all his comrades with a gentle 
and sorrowful gaze. And all of them looked at him, 
realising dimly and in diverse fashion how remote was the 
man from their common humanity, how thought, read- 
ing, the search for the ideal, had divorced him from their 
definite views. Suddenly his mood changed. 

“ Come now, comrades,” he said gently. ‘‘ let me bring 
you such beauty as my poor skill may. Give me my 
violin, Leitmeritz, and I will play you songs so soft that 
they will draw hands of velvet over your brow.” 


II 

The days passed and nothing came to alter the mode 
of life of the furriers of Tottenham Street. It was 
April, and a new balminess seemed to creep through the 
mews into the attics where lived together, if separate, 
Kalisch, Schund and Warsch ; it even crept into the Club 
when Ekaterina brought in with her a bundle of prim- 
roses and stood them tenderly in a jam-pot in the midst 
of the dirty table. But spring was upon London, and 
none felt it sooner than these foreign men and women. 
In Cleveland Street there were now young vegetables on 
the stalls; the waiters on the stairs tried more aggres- 
sively than ever to arouse the interest of the daughter 
of the big family on the second floor, and of demure 
Celestine as she went to market in Charlotte Street ; and 
Cazot, scraping at his wood and wrangling with his Eng- 


LONDON TOWN 


167 


lish apprentice, sang more merrily than ever his little 
military songs on tunes which would have charmed 
Lulli — 

** Ceux qui fument la pipe en terre, 

Y sont d’ Tannee derniere. 

Ceux qui fument la pipe en hois, 

S'en iront dans trois mois/’ 

Even the German clerk forgot to be rigid; he was still 
solemn in his frock-coat and yellow boots, but now he 
wore in his button-hole a sprig of lilac. It was good to 
live, to go freely, to realise that after work, for all save 
the old jobbing printer, whose hand-press could still be 
heard in the night, no pleasure was essential save life 
itself. So vivid was the spring that Kalisch, whom 
material things did not often stir, remarked on it. 

“ It makes me feel,” he said to Warsch in the work- 
shop, “ that ideas and meliorism are nonsense. We live. 
Others too, uneasily perhaps, but they live. Can we not 
work our little while, then lie beside the road and watch 
the others pass by in the dust ? ” 

“ In the mud,” said Warsch, “ you must go further 
east for dust.” 

‘‘ Yes, I suppose so. In the east . . .” Then sud- 
denly Kalisch seemed to keep down certain words. “ I 
mustn’t, I mustn’t,” he said roughly. “ Warsch, never 
let me talk about the East.” 

“ But why not ? ” asked the big German, surprised by 
Israel’s passion. 

“ The East, it’s always there, holding me, calling. 
Desperately it calls, all the heat and colour of it. It 
shouts to me, and that does not frighten me, but at 
times it croons sweetly in my ears ; it Avhispers like the 
tops of the palms in the desert wind, it sighs like the 


168 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


heart of a shell, and then it is terrible, for I listen, I 
am weak, I lose my faith, I am a while a mental sensual- 
ist.” 

“ Your picture,” said Warsch ponderously, as he 
methodically coated with the rubber solution the hide 
he was galloonlng, “ is like a chromo.” 

“ Thanks, Warsch,” cried Kalisch, “ how you help 
me to come back. You must, you know, for I fall too 
readily into those dreams ; you remember my ideal room, 
don’t you? — blue and black, full of soft cushions? ” 
Yes,” Warsch grumbled. Then, after a pause, as 
he tested with a strip of skin the texture of the sticky 
solution, he added : “ It would have been very uncomfort- 
able ; there wasn’t an armchair in it.” 

“ You fat dullard,” said Kalisch. He lovingly 
smacked the big man across the shoulders. “ You’ll 
have six arm-chairs, I suppose, when you marry Lina.” 

‘‘Who said I was going to marry Lina?” Warsch 
dropped his brush and, for one second, seemed angry. 
He had flushed bright red; his scar looked white in 
contrast. 

“ Everybody,” snarled Leltmeritz, “ everybody knows 
you’re taken in by any pink-and-white doll; tac, one 
might think you didn’t know the world to see you falling 
in love. What’s a girl? A vampire; a millstone; an 
elected tyrant, the worst kind. Pink-and-white Lina’s 
the same as the rest. Rotten. Ah, ah! pink-and-white 
Lina.” 

“ Lina’s all right,” growled Warsch. His blue eyes 
looked very angry. “ She’s ...” Then he hesi- 
tated, realised that to defend would be to compromise 
her. “ You let her alone,” he summed up, and returned 
to the hide, on which he now laid with deft fingers the 
long strips of divided skin. 


LONDON TOWN 


169 


There was silence in the workshop, for Schund sat as 
ever, tipping with black rabbit-skins which would become 
ermine. Perekop, as he slowly stitched a stole, seemed 
sunk in thought, of races naturally, for the Grand Mili- 
tary was coming and omens clashed; the seven clouds 
flying east pointed to Arabi, but then he had that very 
morning woke up dreaming of races, looked at the win- 
dow and seen the sky flushed with pink : this might mean 
Sunny Jim. It was very annoying. 

Mrs. Kohn was heard in conversation, there were steps 
on the landing. A young man appeared in front of Mrs. 
Kohn’s enormous form, clad that day in vivid red. She 
threw a supervising glance at the hands, shouted 
“ Shop ” in her throaty voice and vanished upstairs, 
every step' creaking under her weight, towards the 
harem-like rooms above. The young man looked doubt- 
fully at the company. He was a middle-sized youth of 
about twenty-flve, extremely dark and obviously a Jew, 
for his hair was black, oily and wavy, his eyes black too, 
and half covered by his heavy eyelids; his thick nose 
hung over his broad shaven mouth, his chin receded. 
But he ^was not insignificant ; his forehead was enor- 
mously high and protruded a little over his brows. His 
doubt was merely one as to whom he was to 
address. 

“ I’ve come for Miss Galgenstein’s caracul coat,” he 
blurted out at last. 

“ Here, Kalisch,” said Leitmeritz, “ you’re doing it, 
attend to the gentleman.” 

Kalisch took from a shelf a caracul coat, for he had 
proved a good pupil and, though not yet allowed to cut, 
was allowed to mend. His wages had incidentally been 
raised to a pound a week. 

“ Here it is, sir,” said Kalisch. Then the whimsy of 


170 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


spring made him talk. You will find it all right. 
Fourteen shillings to pay. That was a rip, sir, the 
sleeve was almost torn off.” 

The young man began to giggle. 

“ Street accident, I suppose,” said Kalisch. He was 
amused with himself, felt that he was playing the part 
of a polite shopkeeper. 

“ Well,” said the young man, ‘‘ the fact is that my 
sister is a suffragette. She wore this coat the other 
night in Parliament Street and later in the cells. The 
police were a little rough.” 

“ Hum,” said Kalisch. The young man then noticed 
with surprise that the polite, red-headed workman sud- 
denly looked as if he were about to weep, while the big 
man with the scar flushed, and the ugly fellow with the 
odd wrinkles contracted his face hideously. This one 
spoke. 

“ The police are swine. They should be shot. Tac, 
that would be fine.” 

The young man was embarrassed, then suddenly re- 
membered that his sister had said, ‘‘ Thirteen shillings. 
Not a penny more. If they try it on, you show 
them you won’t have it. Talk to them like dogs.” 

“ Here, I say,” he said quickly, “ this won’t do. My 
sister said thirteen shillings. Not a penny more.” 

“ Oh, sir,” said Kalisch, assuming once more his polite 
manner, “ that is quite true, but the young lady did not 
know that an old patch had given way. See, sir,” and 
he quickly opened the coat, “ I have had to put in a new 
side. The guvnor said it ought to be more, and it would 
have been it if had not been Miss Galgenstein.” 

The young man was puzzled. He had no details, and 
this fellow was glib. And now the whole workshop fell 
on him maliciously. 


LONDON TOWN 171 

“ I wouldn’t do it for fourteen shillings on piece- 
work,” said Warsch. 

“ You could buy it for ten in the Tottenham Court 
Road,” snarled Leitmeritz. 

The young man stuck to his point. He did not care 
to face Esther with an overcharge, nor did he want to 
pay the shilling himself. But he was borne down by 
the three men. 

‘‘ Oh, very well, then,” he said hurriedly, as a frown 
of worry formed on his bulbous forehead, “ I suppose 
it’s all right.” 

As Kalisch wrapped up the coat he remarked — 

“ Possibly the young lady will need us again soon, 
sir.” 

“ Possibly,” said the young man, laughing now, for 
he had shelved his trouble. “ You see, she’s keen. She 
believes in women’s rights, all that.” 

“ She is quite right,” said Kalisch, “ one is entitled 
to that which one can take by force. Those women are 
splendid.” 

“ I think so too, really,” said the young man, “ be- 
cause I think everybody should have votes.” 

“ Everybody should have bread, even if they sack the 
bakers’ shops.” 

“ That’s a bit thick, isn’t it? The baker must 
live.” 

Yes, but the shareholder need not.” 

“ Oh, I see, you are a Socialist.” 

“ An Anarchist,” Kalisch corrected gently ; “ it is a 
little different.” 

The young man looked with a new interest at this 
red-haired fellow, who stood with strong hands on the 
parcel, probing him with deep blue eyes. 

‘‘ Oh ! ” he said. “ I have never met one before.” 


172 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


“ Then,” said Kalisch, ‘‘ you have met naught but 
slaves. If you are interested, sir . . 

“ Yes, yes,” cried the young man, and his sleepy eyes 
glowed, “I am. You see. I’m a Radical myself; I 
thought of being a Socialist, but there’s no air in it, no 
adventure.” 

The young man felt oddly warmed because the pale- 
faced man with the copper hair and beard had smiled; 
yet he had smiled wanly, a little like the picture of a 
saint he had seen in the Pitti on a Polytechnic tour. 

“ Come to us, then, sir,” he said, “ any night.” 

But just before paying for the repairs the young man 
thought well to make another effort for Esther ; he was 
a Jew, pertinacious. 

“ You know,” he said, “ you really ought to make it 
thirteen shillings.” 

But the dreamy, red-haired man smiled, shook his head 
and took his money. 


Ill 

It was a few minutes before seven, the sun had just 
set. The Galgensteins were collected together in the 
drawing-room of their villa in Brondesbury Road. Old 
Galgenstein, book in hand, his hat on, walked angrily 
round the little table on which stood a decanter of wine, 
a port glass and a plate of bread. He was a broad, stout 
man of about fifty, with red hands, a full-blown red 
mouth and black eyes which started forward from his 
face in aggressive, insolent wise. He frowned and mut- 
tered at the three women, who waited placidly seated on 
the heavy red- and green-stuff chairs ; these were his 
wife, ten years his junior, but so fat and bloated as to 


LONDON TOWN 


173 


appear his contemporary, and his two daughters, Sarah 
and Esther. There was no resemblance between this 
large, bovine woman with the pendulous cheeks and the 
square, beringed, brown hands and the two handsome 
girls. Sarah, the younger of the two, was still slim — 
slim, that is, for twenty-five, but she was twenty; her 
elder sister, Esther, who was twenty-two, already showed 
by her fine buxomness how quickly her handsome figure 
w'as being hurried to ruin. The sisters were very like 
each other, both white-skinned, both black-haired and 
black-eyed; a slight coarseness appeared in their ears 
and nostrils, faint black down edged their cheeks. Be- 
yond the bulkiness of Esther there was nothing to dis- 
tinguish either. At that moment, at least, on Friday 
night when the sacramental feeling was upon both, there 
was no opportunity for Esther to show her greater 
vivacity. They waited, silent and disapproving. 

“ I wonder ...” said Mr. Galgenstein, but as he 
looked towards the door it opened and admitted the 
young man who had called for the caracul coat. 

“ You are late, Jonas,” said Mr. Galgenstein severely, 
and opened the book. 

“ I am sorry, father.” 

Jonas went to the table, settled his hat comfortably 
over his bulbous forehead. His mother and sisters stood 
up. As Esther came to his side she whispered, “ Got 
it?” and, as he nodded, “Good. I’ll want it for the 
Fegers’ party, I . . .” She caught her father’s eye, 
stopped abruptly and drew over each other her freshly 
washed and still moist hands. 

Mr. Galgenstein began to read the prayers. The 
resonant Hebrew came from him full of nasal and 
throaty tones; these were not David’s songs of joy, and 
as he read, Sarah’s eyes roved round the room, over the 


174 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


hideous red and green chintzes, the blue paper, the 
chiffonier covered with plush frames, gift vases and 
“ Presents from Hastings.” Everything, the cheap 
bronzes, especially the flower-girl with the roses, the 
photographs of her grandfather and grandmother, sick- 
ened the young girl, who had recently discovered that 
William Morris was chic. Still her father’s voice went 
droning on; at times he stopped to tilt his hat further 
on the back of his head, or to take a heavy breath. 

Jonas stood in an attitude of protest. This weekly 
aflPair exasperated him, for he was an agnostic, bitterly 
resented being a Jew and being thought a Jew. But he 
dared not challenge his father, who so obstinately clung 
to his role of patriarch, less because he feared him than 
because the habit lay so heavy on him that he could not 
shake it off. He hated to see every day on the door- 
lintel the rolled tables of the law, to see the Mizpah 
brooch on Sarah’s breast ; yet he listened to the prayers 
and automatically responded. 

Each of the party took from the plate a piece of bread 
and ate it. Then Mr. Galgenstein poured the wine from 
the decanter, took a sip, handed the glass to Jonas, who 
touched it with his lips; Mrs. Galgenstein, with gross 
satisfaction, took a gulp of the wine, handed the glass 
to Sarah, who was still obedient enough to drink her 
share, to Esther, who so cleverly raised her arm that her 
father could not see that she had not drunk. She never 
did, for, as she had told a friend once (thus gaining a 
reputation for brilliancy), “It was difficult to be both 
mystic and prophylactic.” 

Again the prayers droned forth, throatier than be- 
fore, for Mr. Galgenstein had choked as he swallowed 
the wine. Abruptly they stopped. The patriarch took 
the glass and drank up the remains, then laid down the 


LONDON TOWN 


175 


book. A little sigh of relief went up as the group broke. 

“ That’s over for a week,” Esther whispered to Jonas, 
“ Where’s my coat ? ” 

“ In the hall. You’d better fetch it; I must wash my 
hands before supper.” 

“ Oh, never mind your hands. Did you pay for it? ” 

“ Yes, it was fourteen shillings.” 

“ Fourteen,” screamed Esther, her eyes no longer 
sleepy, “ I said thirteen. You are a fool, Jonas.” 

“What’s the row about.?” asked Sarah. 

“Here’s Jonas been an’ paid fourteen shillings for 
my coat when I said thirteen.” 

“ How could you do that, Jonas ! ” cried Mrs. Galgen- 
stein. 

“ You should have made a bargain,” said Mr. Galgen- 
stein, abruptly lapsing from priest into ordinary man. 
“ You could have said you must have discount for cash, a 
shilling on fourteen is only seven per cent.” 

“ Well, I’m not in business,” said Jonas savagely. 
His mouth protruded. 

“No, I see you aren’t. You’re meshugar, paying 
money away like that.” 

“ The man had to put in a new side. It was quite 
right.” 

“ Who told him to put in a new side ? It didn’t want 
it,” said Esther. Jonas explained and Mr. Gugenstein 
condescended to be jocular. 

“ That’s a pity, Esther, that new side won’t last three 
meetings.” 

Meanwhile Mrs. Galgenstein was slowly driving the 
party out of the drawing-room, collecting the decanter, 
plate and glass. As her children went downstairs she 
puffed, surveyed with satisfaction the trim and hideous 
room and murmured — 


176 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


“ Good, I can lock up now.” 

On the stairs Jonas was still wrangling with Esther, 
whom she heard exclaim shrilly — 

“ But why didn’t you ask for the old side? I might 
have made a toque of it.” 

The Galgensteins’ Friday supper was no trifle. Vege- 
table soup, in which onion predominated, was followed 
by a mess of spaghetti saturated with butter and tomato. 
As the family struggled in awkward attitudes to eat the 
slippery food, the wrangle began again, shrill on the 
part of Esther, disdainful on that of Mr. Galgenstein. 
Jonas, whose mind was still full of the red-headed work- 
man with the great blue eyes, hardly answered the re- 
proaches. 

“ More,” he said shortly, pushing his plate towards 
his mother. 

“ Take care, Jonas,” said Mrs. Galgenstein, “ you’ve 
still got the fish to come.” 

But she helped him plentifully, smiled at him as he 
ate, then nodded to her husband and loudly whispered, 
“ I do like to see him with a good appetite.” 

Oh, there’s never been anything wrong that way, eh, 
Jonas? ” said Mr. Galgenstein, with returning joviality. 
“ Been busy at the ’Cademy to-day? ” 

“ Pretty fairly,” said J onas suspiciously. “ But I’ve 
half-a-dozen duffers’ll never matriculate.” 

“You shouldn’t have gone to the ’Cademy,” said 
Sarah, “ when you could have gone to Schiedler’s. You 
wouldn’t have found them duffers there; there’s nothing 
like Jews, is there, father? ” 

“ No, my dear,” said Mr. Galgenstein, “ nothing like 
Jews to get on. Look at us.” He gave the example, 
well pleased with his fine girls and his enormous sideboard 
with the lace cover and bronze vases. “ No,” and his 


LONDON TOWN 177 

big red mouth smiled under the black moustache, “ we’ve 
done pretty well. Eh, Jonas? ” 

Jonas said nothing, but his father needed no help in a 
favourite topic. “ Let me see, it’s twenty-six years ago 
I left Danzig. A long time, a long time. Eh, Becca? ” 

“ Yes, Sol,” said Mrs. Galgenstein softly, ‘‘ a long 
time. Good thing you left, though; this is a better 
country, Sol.” 

“ Rather,” Sarah and Esther chimed in. 

“ Oh, you girls,” said Mr. Galgenstein, “ what do you 
know about good countries, English girls like you. 
Even your mother don’t know. She don’t come from 
Russia, like me. She don’t know much ’bout the Pale 
o’ Settlement, as they call it, eh, Becca ? ” 

“ No, Sol,” said Mrs. Galgenstein obediently. 

“ Bad days,” said Mr. Galgenstein, “ don’t I remem- 
ber ’em, though I was only ten ! You don’t know what 
a pogrom’s like, you. You’ve not had the soldiers in 
the house; you’ve not seen your mother cut open and 
left dead with a pig’s trotter in her mouth. I remember 
... I was hiding under the table, I could see her 
lying on the floor. Lor’, I remember your Aunt Rachel 
too, screaming as they dragged her out.” 

“ What became of Aunt Rachel? ” asked Esther in a 
low voice, playing with her fork as innocently as she 
could. 

“ Eh ? What’s that ? What’s that got to do with 
you what became of your aunt? How am I to know 
what became of her when the soldiers took her out? I 
never see her again, and it’s got nothing to do with 
young ladies.” 

“ Father,” said Jonas, in the silence that followed on 
the snub which was part of the familiar reminiscences, 
“ how is it you never revolted, all of you? ” 


178 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


Revolted ? What do you mean ? What’s the good 
of revolting? That wouldn’t do any good with the 
Government against you. Going’s safer, you believe 
me.” 

“ Revolting’s finer.” 

‘‘ Hear, hear,” cried Esther, clapping her hands. 

“ Sol, will you have plaice or herring ? ” asked Mrs. 
Galgenstein placidly. 

“ Hear, hear,” sniffed Mr. Galgenstein, “ plaice, 
Becca. Hear, hear, that’s all very fine for a suffra- 
gette. You say ‘ hear-hear ’ to the Cossacks, you’d 
find a difference with the bobbies.” 

“ I am ready,” said Esther solemnly, and there was 
sincerity in her voice. 

There was a roar of laughter from all save Jonas. 
“ I am ready,” she repeated. “ Cossack lances may kill 
women, they can’t kill their cause.” 

As the fish was eaten, golden skin parted from glisten- 
ing white flesh, the discussion veered to suffrage, of 
which Esther was the ablest exponent, while Jonas and 
Sarah, who agreed with her, allowed her to engage her 
father. 

‘‘ Women are women and men are men,” he thun- 
dered at last, smacking the table with his big red 
fist. 

“ Quite right, father ; don’t employ girls in your 
shop.” 

“ Why shouldn’t I employ girls in my shop — shops, 
I mean ? ” 

“ Because they earn money to keep themselves and 
pay taxes. A man’s got to do that to have a vote; if 
you won’t let girls have a vote don’t let ’em work.” 

The discussion raged on while Mrs. Galgenstein 
placidly directed the small servant, pressed more food on 


LONDON TOWN 179 

her beloved son, who dispiritedly talked to Sarah of her 
coming hospital nurse’s exam. 

“ Won’t you look fine in blue! ” he said. 

‘‘ Go on, Jonas, I’m not going in for a fever hospital. 
No, I’m for St. George’s, that’s the place, and green’s 
my colour.” 

“Won’t suit you, dear,” said Jonas; “try Norland 
and a brown cloak.” 

“ No,” said Sarah firmly, “ green, St. George’s and 
Hyde Park.” 

“ Want to marry a swell doctor, Sarah,” suggested 
Mrs. Galgenstein. 

“Eh? What’s that?” cried Mr. Galgenstein, turn- 
ing away from Esther after crushing her with the re- 
mark that a woman’s place was in the home. 

“ Who’s going to marry a doctor ? ” 

“ Sarah,” said Jonas, laughing at his angry red face. 

“Oh, is she? Well, take care you choose him from 
the Jews’ Hospital, my girl; we don’t want a goyem in 
the family.” 

“ You don’t mind ’em as friends for me,” said Esther 
angrily. 

“No, I don’t. And what of it? You can be a suf- 
fragette if you like and make friends with countesses, 
that’s all right, it’s good for you. But you don’t marry 
in that lot.” 

Esther did not reply, looked obstinately in front of 
her. But her father still rumbled on. 

“ That’s all right. We’re getting on, we are, and 
you can know good people now, but you marry one of 
us, understand that. We’re getting on, we are ; twenty 
years ago I was a young fellow what couldn’t speak 
English, frying fish in the Minories. And now ...” 
he gazed reverentially at the sideboard, “ now I’ve got 


180 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


two shops of me own, and that ain’t the end of it either. 
I’ve given you the best education, let you go gadding 
and sufFragetting, and Sarah there be a nurse, though 
she needn’t work if she don’t want to, and sent Jonas 
to Cambridge ...” 

“ Pardon me, father, I got a scholarship.” 

“ Who kept you down there ? ” 

Up, father, not down,” said Jonas mechanically, 
then regretted the correction. 

Mr. Galgenstein swore under his breath; he would 
never learn to say ‘‘ up,” and almost hated his son when 
this accident happened. 

At last the dinner ended with braised meat, followed 
by a rich blanc-mange half filled with preserved cherries, 
and by heavy green Gorgonzola. No wine was drunk, 
but the faces glistened. Mr. Galgenstein pushed away 
his plate and lit a cigar, playfully presenting Sarah with 
the band; Mrs. Galgenstein crossed her hands over her 
belt and began to look sleepy. After the small servant 
had cleared the table the peace of evening fell over the 
family. Mrs. Galgenstein occupied one corner of the 
fireplace and mended J onas’s underclothes ; at the other 
corner, in an arm-chair, Mr. Galgenstein smoked as he 
read that day’s Jewish Chronicle and The Fish-Trades 
Gazette, which the nine o’clock post had brought him. 
There was little conversation, for Esther answered only 
in monosyllables : a Kelly’s local directory before her, 
she was addressing a pile of envelopes into each of which 
she slipped a notice of a suffrage meeting; Sarah, find- 
ing Jonas absorbed in some idea of his own, turned to a 
novel of which, with automatic contempt, he noted the 
title : Her Darling Sin. Slowly smoking cigarette after 
cigarette and nominally reading the fourth volume of 
Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, Jonas was reviewing his un- 


LONDON TOWN 


181 


eventful past and trying to connect it with the life and 
past of the red-haired furrier, whose blue eyes were so 
vivid to him as almost to be visible. He felt them fixed 
on him, misty with tears, gentle and yet fierce and in- 
finitely searching. 

Nothing very notable stood out from his past life. 
His father had left Russia soon after the pogrom, wan- 
dered for some years in Germany, come to England to 
fry fish in the Minories. There, at twenty-four, he had 
married Rebecca, the daughter of a Norton Folgate 
greengrocer. First Jonas, then Esther and lastly 
Sarah had been born to the struggling couple who, 
through crises and periods of unemployment, had always 
managed to feed and clothe their fat babies. As Bell 
Lane was too far away Jonas had been sent to a Board 
School, where he at once became prominent. The boy’s 
career suffered no reverse; a scholarship took him to 
the Secondary School, another to Cambridge. There 
his father had been able to maintain him, for he was 
already a successful man. All through the terrible 
years old Galgenstein had managed to do more than feed 
his fat babies ; he had lived in one room with his family, 
saved money, denied himself, with the fine ferocity of his 
race, the pleasures of Christian youth. Rebecca Gal- 
genstein did not visit the Yiddish theatre until she was 
thirty, but money was saved, and, when her father died 
his inheritance was added to her husband’s capital: 
Solomon Galgenstein opened a fish shop in the Edgware 
Road; Esther learnt the piano and Sarah took local 
classes in biology ; the family travelled from the Minories 
to Brondesbury; a second shop was opened in Oxford 
Street ; there was talk of a house in Maida Vale. 

“ Yes,” thought Jonas, ‘‘ we’re getting on.” The 
idea did not fire him. Getting on was no longer for him 


182 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


the banner of life on the march. Cambridge and his 
success, for he had been fourth wrangler, had filled him 
with ideas inimical to shops, sweated waitresses, stale 
fish and -improving balance sheets. He had not been 
popular at Cambridge, even in the scientific set ; though 
he had learned to speak English well, there were accents 
in his voice which did not please ; his memories of ’Varsity 
days, similar to those of the Board School, were chiefly 
of unremitting toil. The University had in a sense 
ruined him for the life he ought to have led, without 
fitting him for the one he adopted when he rebelled 
against Solomon Galgenstein, Ltd., and became mathe- 
matical master at a large Brondesbury Academy. He 
knew what he hated, but he did not know what he liked. 
He knew that he hated the villa in Brondesbury and its 
furniture, but could not have said what he would have 
preferred, and yet he vaguely felt that a villa in 
Brondesbury was right, a flat in Oxford Street wicked; 
he hated the dull boys, the insolence of the principal who 
had hired him, but could not bring himself to using a 
University education for the benefit of the fish shops ; he 
hated the pretence of life around him, suspected Sarah 
seriously of the designs on Christian doctors which were 
attributed to her as a joke; he believed in woman’s suf- 
frage, but was not sure that Esther’s enthusiasm was 
not made up of idleness, hysteria of the celibate and a 
taste for Christian patronesses with detached residences. 
He hated still more his parents’ tolerance, for he knew 
that he would never have gone to Cambridge if a social 
value had not attached to his degree, that Esther’s views 
were tolerated for the sake of her friends, that Sarah 
was humoured because his parents were watching the 
career of young Doctor Feger, their cousin, recently es- 
tablished in St. John’s Wood Road. 


LONDON TOWN 


183 


“ Oh, the Fegers,” Jonas muttered. Then again his 
thoughts took a bitter turn. Their cousins were suc- 
ceeding in leather, and “ kept up ” with them (since they 
had left the Minories) by calling on them twice and ask- 
ing them to dinner once every year to meet exclusively 
Jewish acquaintances. Jonas resented this because the 
Fegers knew Christians whom the Galgensteins were not 
allowed to meet. Above the Fegers, too, were offensive 
folk, the d’ Almeidas of Park Lane, bankers dimly con- 
nected with Rebecca, whom they never saw, rich, walled- 
in, insolently orthodox, with whom they exchanged cards 
when lives began and ended. And above the d’ Almeidas, 
at the top of the family pyramid, the great American 
Galgenstein, the phosphorus king, whose journeys be- 
tween Chicago, Newport and the Riviera were followed 
by the family in the newspapers. 

Jonas was full of unreasoned hatred of this edifice, of 
these superiorities and inferiorities made up of money, 
of this significant social spacing; without wanting to 
dominate, he could not bear to be subject; he did not 
desire money, but his blood bade him respect it; he did 
not desire to rise in the social scale, but he could not bear 
to be placed low in it. It was this perhaps, fermenting 
in him, which had in Cambridge days driven him into the 
Liberal — or, as he preferred to call it. Radical — 
camp. The accumulated sufferings of his race had not 
culminated for him in a fierce desire to “ get on ”; they 
had made him rebelliously desirous to see the poor richer, 
perhaps still more desirous to see the rich poorer. He 
was hot, uneasy; he was unhappy; he was even and 
stealthily in love with the fair-haired, lily-white girl who 
taught the piano at the Academy ; he was ready. And 
as he thought of the fine blue-eyed furrier he felt soothed 
and seduced, drawn to him by his beauty, full of dreams 


184 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


of a re-created world, peaceful and yet shot with the 
splendid turbulence of blood and riot. The man’s words 
rang through his head: “You have met naught but 
slaves.” 

The evening passed. Jonas turned the leaves of his 
book without reading them. He was too full of cribbed 
desires, of vague aspirations, of doubts as to the value 
of his political party, to think connectedly. He went 
out to walk awhile along the front gardens of his road; 
the fresh, live smell of the earth and the buds of spring 
excited him ; the dreamy blue gaze of the copper-crowned 
furrier had seemed to follow him, to seek out and weep 
over the vortices of his soul. 


IV 

Jonas, as he knocked at Leitmeritz’s door and heard 
within the sounds of a violin, felt his heart beat. This 
was a dangerous, almost disreputable adventure; on the 
other hand, it was a demonstration of Liberalism; also 
he was about to see the red-haired furrier. He was 
nervous and excited as he went along Little Goodge 
Street, for a piano organ was playing in front of the 
Bar de la Republique, in which sat a large foreign crowd, 
and a knot of dirty little children danced to the tune, 
grotesque and gnomelike in the bad light. The Min- 
ories were very far, Cambridge was very near and 
Brondesbury wound tight about him. As he climbed the 
rickety, unlit stairs, feeling for the banisters, which were 
sticky with dirt, and still more as he heard dragging 
footsteps inside the room, he wished he had not come. 
But the door opened suddenly and, beyond the short 
dark woman who stood before him, he saw in the dim 


LONDON TOWN 


185 


light of the candles several people sitting or standing 
round a deal table ; at the end of the room, facing him, 
palefaced and deep-eyed, the red-haired furrier was 
playing his melancholy air. 

“ Let him in,” said Kalisch, without ceasing to play. 

The dark woman stood aside, closed the door behind 
Jonas who, after a second’s hesitation, leaned against 
the wall. The scene was to him as striking and as elab- 
orate as a tableau in a play. He could see a large 
room, unfurnished save for the table and some chairs, 
with a dirty window pasted up with strips of newspaper ; 
he could see also a range which had not been blackleaded 
since it had been installed, now covered with saucepans ; 
there were in every corner heaps of clothing and papers, 
untidy as if they had been kicked there. But he did not 
dwell on these details, nor on the smell of the food and 
stale air which assailed him; he surveyed the assembly, 
the slatternly woman who had admitted him, the ugly 
man with the yellow face, the straight black hair and the 
circumflex wrinkles ; the big handsome man with the scar, 
the heavy brute who had taken no notice of him at the 
furrier’s, and was now, head almost on the table, gazing 
at the beautiful girl who sat opposite him, at her hands. 
Jonas looked some seconds at those wonderful white 
hands with the rosy nails which the girl, as she listened, 
was slowly polishing with a pad. His gaze passed over 
the slight fair girl by her side to fix on the violinist, 
whose eyes, he found, were upon him and full of appeal. 
They looked at each other, those two ; the one played and 
the other listened. Jonas, though gifted with the taste 
of his race, hardly noticed the music, so interested was 
he in the player, in the light that moved over his face 
as he swung with the rhythm. He knew the air, Mosz- 
kowski’s Berceuse, and would have been unable to tell 


186 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


whether it was well plajed or jll. The red-haired man 
seemed to know this ; he smiled as the round melody fell 
softly upon his hearers ; he put languor into every note ; 
he drew out endlessly as a caress phrases which should 
have been almost brisk, and always he smiled sorrowfully 
at the stranger. Suddenly he stopped on an unfinished 
note, laid the violin on the table and, holding out his 
hand to Jonas, said — 

“ Welcome, comrade, I am glad you have come.” 

Jonas took the firm white hand, felt reassured by its 
clasp. Then, one by one, the members were named to 
him; all, save Schund, welcomed him, each according to 
his character, Leitmeritz with reservations, for he did 
not approve of the admission of strangers, and had but 
reluctantly given way to Kalisch, who assured him that 
Galgenstein was “straight.” Ekaterina said: “Wel- 
come, if you are with us.” 

“ Oh, I am with you,” said Jonas nervously, for the 
intense grey eyes seemed to analyse him, “I am a 
Radical.” 

“ Hum,” growled Leitmeritz, “ that’s not much. 
We’re not Radicals here.” 

“ Yes, we are,” said Warsch, “ we’re just a little more 
advanced, Mr. Galgenstein.” 

“ Comrade Galgenstein,” said Jonas, and a smile sud- 
denly gave animation to his swarthy face. 

The little fair girl began to laugh. “ Ah,” she cried, 
“ that is well said. Why, you are already one of us. 
Perhaps you too will be a hero.” 

“A hero.?*” Jonas asked. 

“ Yes, a hero, like Ekaterina. She fired at Pobie- 
donostzeff. It is a pity she missed him, isn’t it? ” said 
Lydotchka. She looked like a Sevres figure, he thought, 
as she expressed her bloodthirsty sentiment. “ You 


LONDON TOWN 


187 


see,” she blurted on, unconscious of anything save her 
admiration for Ekaterina, “ she wanted to save the peo- 
ple; she was ready to give her life. Oh, comrade, was 
she not brave? ” 

“ Lydotchka,” said Ekaterina severely, “ that is 
enough. Deeds, not words.” 

Jonas was staring at her. He could hardly believe 
that those lovely hands had pointed a revolver until she 
reproved her sycophant, for there was a hard tone in 
her voice which suddenly told him that those steady grey 
eyes could look mercilessly upon an en.emy. 

“ Oh, certainly,” he said hurriedly, “ it was brave. 
Though I don’t say I would do the same. It is not 
necessary, perhaps.” 

“ It is necessary,” said Ekaterina. 

“ It is necessary,” Lydotchka repeated. 

“ It isn’t always necessary,” Warsch interposed, ‘‘ it 
may make reform and it may stop it.” 

“ Oh, kill the vermin,” shouted Leitmeritz. “ Do you 
compromise with wolves ? ” 

Jonas stood silently by as the three plunged into con- 
flict, observing the play of the temperaments of these 
people who were all Anarchists and all of them different ; 
he grasped that Warsch was the lukewarm theorist, 
Ekaterina the generous fanatic, Leitmeritz the mere 
blood-luster. Kalisch stood aside, a smile upon his red 
mouth, watching with something that was almost amuse- 
ment the attitude of Jonas. Keenly interested as was 
the young man, he felt somewhat like a cat in a high- 
walled yard where some dogs are fighting for the privi- 
lege of killing it. At last Leitmeritz seemed to domi- 
nate his antagonist and his ally. 

Kill,” he shouted, ‘‘ that’s the thing. It advertises 
the cause; advertisement, the capitalist will tell you, is 


188 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


the seed of success : well, where is a better advertisement 
than a dead police officer? It frightens, It arouses. 
The smell of blood makes the people rise, as it makes 
sharks crowd round a ship. That’s good, tac, that’s 
good, that’s fine. Killing makes anger and hatred, and 
that’s what we want.” 

“ What ! ” cried Jonas, “ surely you don’t think hatred 
better than love.” 

Leitmeritz began to laugh ; the wrinkles deepened, he 
showed long teeth. 

“ Love ! ” he cried, “ a fine thing for story-books. I 
say love your enemies, but hate a ruler like poison. 
Hatred, comrade Galgenstein, is the force that has made 
the world, a pretty thing, you will say. But, tac, hatred 
is the force that will make another world. Hatred is 
strength; it’s because the capitalist hates his men that 
he grinds them ; he could not if he loved them. It’s be- 
cause the parties hate each other that they gain power in 
turn. How can you fight a thing if you love it ? ” 

“ You can win it by love, can you not? ” said Jonas, 
but he was shaken. 

“ Has any religion of love, and there are a dozen, won 
the masters? No, it won the slaves, because love is the 
creed of slaves. The man who hates is the strong man 
because he fears nothing, spares nothing, because noth- 
ing can move his heart, because he has no heart. Head 
and will, comrades, those things make the world. And 
to hate — ah, it’s fine ! ” 

Leitmeritz stopped, looked in ecstasy towards the 
dirty ceiling. 

“ I hate the rich because they are rich and own the 
beauty of the world ; I hate their greed and I hate their 
charity ; I hate the education they stole from us ; I hate 
the beautiful because I am ugly : I’d destroy beauty, tac. 


LONDON TOWN 


189 


yes, I would, for it owes me my revenge; I hate the 
woods because I may not walk in them. Tac ! trespass- 
ers will be prosecuted. Burn the woods : I hate the sea 
because I have not the half-crown that will take me to 
its shore, the time to go; I hate life itself because it 
cannot last and I too must rot in my grave. It’s hell, 
hell to think that others will breathe and bask in the sun 
and hold in their hands the hands of girls ; and I hate 
joy because it makes me happy, I hate my friends because 
they love me and because to love me gives them joy. 
Burn, kill, that’s the remedy. Let there be nothing left 
of this world to wait for the time to come when the earth 
will be cold, the sun dull red and dimly seen through 
mist, and man will be like a beast crawling in caverns 
to seek warmth near the fire that is dying.” 

There were some seconds of silence. Jonas was afraid 
of this creature, who trembled with fury and wiped his 
lips with the back of his hand. Then the others, appar- 
ently used to such outbursts, began to talk, and Jonas, 
battered on every side, found that his political views were 
slipping from him, so clear was the logic of Warsch and 
Kalisch as they arraigned the State. 

“ But you must have organisation,” he faltered. 

“What for.?” said Kalisch, “to impose the will of 
the majority.? ” 

“ Well, the majority must rule.” 

“ Why? ” 

Jonas hesitated, and Ekaterina thrust in — 

“ Because it is the majority, I suppose.” 

“ But,” said Jonas helplessly, “ the minority can’t 
rule.” 

“ Why should anybody rule ? ” asked Kalisch, and his 
eyes looked so persuasive at the young man that he 
found he had nothing to say. And now Kalisch began 


190 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


to speak in low tones that gradually grew clearer. 
Point by point he demolished the programmes of the 
political parties, showed that with authority went nepot- 
ism and jobbery, that to put a class in power injured it 
as much as it injured the subjects. 

“ Think,” he said gently, “ of what they call liberty 
of contract : it is liberty to starve.” 

“ But,” said Jonas, “ every day the State is helping, 
raising wages, giving freedom to trade unions; it will 
soon give pensions, insure against disease and unemploy- 
ment, return the land to the people. Are these things 
no good ? ” 

“ They are tainted, they are but half done. They 
are the ransom of wealth, not the wealth that comes 
from happiness and voluntary effort.” 

Kalisch unfolded the Anarchist theory, showed that 
the slow passage of power into the hands of the State 
was but a transfer of tyranny. 

“What is the use of a common will,” he asked, “ if 
seven and a half millions vote in such wise that three and 
a half millions can tyrannise over three millions ? ” 

All through the long evening Jonas found himself 
grasping for support at ideas that gave way as he 
seized them. Pitilessly Ekaterina and Leitmeritz smoth- 
ered with contempt his desire for gradual betterment; 
Schund, who had hardly moved and still gazed at 
Ekaterina, discomposed him by his presence, but Ly- 
dotchka, awaking to pity as she saw him surrounded by 
opponents, smiled at him from time to time. It was 
Kalisch, however, whose words shook and remoulded him. 
Jonas had too long trained his mind in the exactitude of 
mathematics to shrink from logical conclusions. Step 
by step Kalisch drove him back, showed him that peasant 
proprietorship would become a bankrupt system as 


LONDON TOWN 


191 


population increased, that tenancy would place the toil- 
ers under the heel of the governing class, that a minimum 
wage meant that none would receive more than the mini- 
mum wage, that rising wages meant rises in prices, 
which the worker would defray. With every sentence 
Jonas felt more as a squirrel in a wheel, turning, turn- 
ing, unable to find relief, save through a hole that led 
into a cage. 

“ No, no,” Kalisch was softly saying, “ the law can 
do nothing but coerce. The freedom of your deeds lies 
in the freedom of your soul, the willingness to join to- 
gether freely and to part freely, to love freely and to 
die freely, to die free from a pauper’s funeral or the ul- 
timate alms of a tyrant.” 

“ But what must we do? ” Jonas asked weakly. 

“ First destroy. Comrade, believe with Nietzsche that 
to build a sanctuary you must overthrow a sanctuary.” 






1 



PART III 
KARSAVINA 


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CHAPTER I 


THE WOMAN BY THE CANAL 

I 

Israel said good-night to Galgenstein at the corner of 
Brondesbury Road, refused the loan of a shilling, for, as 
he said, he would have money the next morning, Friday 
being pay-day at Kohn’s; he turned his face south to 
walk home, as he loved to do, rather through little 
streets than along the vast quietude of Kilburn High 
Road and Maida Vale. It was after midnight, and all 
that evening he had wandered with Jonas among the 
scattered villas and building plots that lie north of Ken- 
sal Rise; the heavy heat of July had left sultriness in 
the air, and Kalisch, as he slowly walked into London, 
felt content; the sun had not warmed his body, save 
through the dirty windows of the workshop, but it had 
shone and thrown a delicate colour on its walls, had 
whispered to him of other lands where lights were 
orange, shadows black as china ink, and skies like a vault 
painted with salts of cooper. He had eaten with Jonas, 
better than usual, in a German shop, where were two lit- 
tle tables, golden BuMinge, good Leberzemrst, dark 
brown bread, and potato salad dressed with cream in 
which were scraps of tarragon ; then they had drunk 
English beer in a public-house and talked of the state of 
the world and of the revolution to come when the work- 
ers rose. 

As he walked, Israel thought first of Galgenstein, who 
could now be counted as a convert. The young man 
had, during the past four months, greedily accepted and 
195 


196 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


read the books and pamphlets the members of the Little 
Goodge Street Club had lent him. His Radicalism was 
no longer somnolent ; he was still far from realising the 
social revolution, his attempts to see it in his mind were 
still as unsuccessful as would have been an effort to 
imagine a million in gold, but he understood it as a 
rising of the people when soldiers would throw down 
their arms, when Mayfair, Kensington and perhaps 
Brondesbury would be sacked, after which, reaction set- 
ting in, the workers would voluntarily form into guilds 
to produce in freedom beautiful commodities. He 
brushed aside the unpleasant idea of the sack of Brondes- 
bury, assured that when it came he could persuade the 
justly infuriated people to spare his family’s life and to 
turn to the fish shops. To evolve from Radicalism to 
Socialism was almost impossible; his was not the type 
of mind that finds in the intervention of the State the 
cure for all ills ; he was, like his associates, too fond of 
individual liberty to support rules and bureaucracy. 
He was, like most Anarchists, an exasperated Whig. 

All this, which Galgenstein had that night said so 
clearly, turned in Israel’s mind. He liked Jonas, liked 
his new passion and childlike wonder in presence of the 
truth, guiltily liked his admiration. He thought, a 
little bitterly, as he passed through street after street, 
that every one of these little houses, so alike, so proper 
and so clean, might shelter a bright young soul groping 
in a darkness which no religious or political light could 
dispel. These suburban streets depressed him, and yet 
he returned ever to his melancholy ; there was a fascina- 
tion for him in the red-brick villas, their similar bay- 
windows, their clean white curtains and ornamental pots, 
their tidy front gardens, for if they meant selfishness 
and hostility they meant individuality. He was not, 


KARSAVINA 


197 


as would have been a Socialist, filled with despair when 
confronted with these compact little centres of hatred 
and envy ; he hoped too much of propaganda and the in- 
vincible power of truth to shrink from these misdirected, 
but immense energies. The Shirland Road depressed 
him more, perhaps; Warsch would have found satisfac- 
tion there, for the houses were broken into tenements 
and, in the side streets, he would have gloated over the 
idea that each house sheltered a dozen potential rebels ; 
but Israel’s quality was aristocratic ; he loved, but did 
not respect the people; his faith was in the educated, 
the better bred, who could alone be expected to be honest 
and socially ascetic. 

He walked through the heavy night under the blue- 
black sky in which flickered millions of stars, passed over 
a bridge and, at the end of Maida Hill West, saw the 
lights of the Edgware Road reflected in the still waters 
of the canal. He turned to walk along the water, which 
shone dully like a black mirror, looked no longer at the 
houses of the well-to-do. He stopped, leant his arms 
against the canal wall, looked long over the water; his 
thoughts were indefinite, no longer now of progress 
and of revolt, but rather of sullen rivers such as this 
canal, which stagnated throughout the centuries in the 
wild and scented jungle. He did not notice the red- 
brick church behind him strike one o’clock, though the 
silence was complete; in the houses opposite every light 
was out, and from the Edgware Road even there came 
little sound save when a belated motor-bus petarded 
towards its garage at Cricklewood. Hidden in the 
shadow of a tree he looked out upon the canal, along the 
towpath. Without turning his head he saw a woman 
enter the street from the Edgware Road, walk towards 
him, looking at the water, then stop, in the same attitude 


198 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


as his, her arms on the low wall. He watched her idly, 
hardly interested; he could just see that her hair was 
light under her white sailor hat. Then he found him- 
self wondering why she was motionless, weaving round 
her the pathetic, vulgar romance of a crossed love. The 
woman looked at the black, vaulted hole in which the 
canal disappears under Aberdeen Place; she gazed in- 
tently at it, bending over the wall. Suddenly Kalisch’s 
senses became alert. The woman had awkwardly placed 
one hand on the coping and tried to haul herself over it. 
She failed, after a while tried and scrambled over it to 
the towpath. As Israel heard her softly drop on the 
earth he found himself running softly to the spot on 
which she had stood, then looking over to the dark figure 
that crouched under the wall. His heart beat, for he 
understood, and, all philosophical views scattered, he 
longed to hold her back. The woman stood up, looked 
to the right and left, but not behind her and, with a 
muffled exclamation, stepped towards the water. But 
Kalisch had leapt the wall, seized her by the arm, and 
now drew her back into the shadow of the wall, held her 
within one arm. He did not speak, for he could feel her 
against him, trembling violently, and hear her breath 
come and go in great gasps. He took off her hat, which 
hung loose by a single pin; the mass of hair coiled on 
the nape of her neck became unbound and fell on her 
shoulders. 

“ Don’t speak yet,” he said gently, “ nothing shall 
harm you.” 

He could see her better now ; she was small and slim, 
probably not more than twenty, pretty as flaxen hair, a 
full red mouth and a regular nose make a girl when she 
is very pale. At last she opened her eyes and he guessed 
them to be blue. She looked at him carelessly, rather 


KARSAVINA 


199 


as if she were conscious of his presence than as if she 
saw him plainly. For a while she lay within his grasp 
without struggling ; from the first moment indeed she had 
not struggled, her attempted suicide had not been deter- 
mined ; possibly, though, she was merely weak. At last, 
however, she seemed to regain some strength. She laid 
her small, bare hands on the damp earth, sat up. Then 
she spoke — 

“ Why did you not let me die ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” said Kalisch. He was just then 
wondering why he had not. After all, the woman was 
entitled to take her own life if she chose. 

“ Ah.?* I suppose you’re like the rest. You believe in 
life being holy, and being damned if you commit suicide? 
What have I got to live for? You don’t know, and yet 
you come and you spoil my chance. I . . . ” her voice 
broke, “ oh, I shan’t be able to try again, I shan’t be 
able to try again . . . oh, I had to try so hard . . . 
oh . . 

Israel did not r^ply, while the girl, again limp and 
abandoned, wept against his shoulder. He felt remorse- 
ful; this girl had summoned up desperate courage and 
he had foiled her ; he had exerted authority. He heard 
in her voice a foreign intonation, though her English was 
very good, and it angered him to find in this fact some- 
thing that made him feel her fellow. “ Free units, free 
units,” he muttered as a spell, but the spell did not act. 

“ I’ve been so unhappy,” said the girl, as her sobs 
subsided, “ I thought I’d better die.” 

“ Tell me,” said Kalisch ; “ whatever it is I will help 
you.” 

The girl turned her face towards his, four inches dis- 
tant, very pale in the bad light. For some seconds she 
surveyed him intently. 


^00 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


“ You’re a fine man, tac-tac,” she remarked. 

“Ah? You are Russian?” 

“ I was born in Russia.” 

“ Oh ? ” Kalisch understood the distinction. “ I don’t 
know where I was born. It doesn’t matter. I am an 
Anarchist.” 

“ An Anarchist ? ” the girl repeated. “ Good, I am 
an Anarchist. But then, comrade, why did you not let 
me die? Am I not free to die? ” 

“Yes. But why not live? The summer is coming.” 

“ Summer is as hungry as winter.” 

“ Ah, you wanted to die because you were hungry ? 
Why did you not steal? ” 

“ I have done so. I went to gaol for three months. 
I do not like it.” 

“ No,” said Kalisch after a pause. “ But have you 
no trade, no friends ? ” 

“ I have a trade and no work. I am a tailoress. I 
know people, but I have no friends. Listen, though, 
comrade ; I like you. Here is my story. My father and 
mother are in Hull. They left Russia to make money 
here, when I was a child ; in Hull they are tallow- 
chandlers, and if I had liked I could have done nothing 
but* play the piano until a man bought me in marriage 
and told me to look after his children and order fish for 
his dinner. That’s not life, it’s Death’s vestibule. I 
ran away. I found work, and when I did not I went 
hungry. I have been in London two years. I have read 
Bakunin, ArtzybatchefF . . . you know them all.” 

“ Yes . . . one moment, be still.” They kept 
silence while the heavy footfall of a policeman echoed on 
the other side of the wall as he walked up Maida Hill 
West. “Then?” he questioned. 

“ Then? ” said the girl fiercely. “ Nothing. Wages, 


KARSAVINA 


201 


no wages, hunger, insult. That is all. I’m not going 
on for ever. I wanted to walk quietly into the water, 
struggle into that blackness where the canal goes under 
the street, to die. Was I wrong? ” 

No,” said Israel gently, “ yet life may be sweet. 
Do you want to die now? ” 

“ No,” said the girl, looking at him with broad eyes, 

not now. I touch the hand of a friend ; I am blinded 
again.” 

“ Then,” said Kalisch, “ let us try again. Come with 
me; when you want to die you can go. I am a furrier, 
I live in Cleveland Street, my name is Israel Kalisch.” 

“ Karsavina. I use no other name. But I asked no 
favour of you.” 

‘‘ I offered none. I have none to offer. I have, until 
to-morrow, not even money to buy you a roof for 
the night. But come with me, take my bed and I will 
lie on the floor. It will not be the first time I have lain 
thus.” 

“ Hum,” said the girl. She drew away from him with 
knitted brows, rather hostile, but as he did not touch 
her or smile she felt reassured. 

“ I will come, thank you, comrade.” 

Israel stood up, pulled her to her feet. But she could 
not climb the wall, fell back almost into his arms. He 
knew those symptoms. 

“Hungry?” he said. “Courage, I have food at 
home.” 

It was a terribly long walk along the Edgware Road 
and the interminable Marylebone Road ; the breadth of 
the streets made the distance seem greater. Israel 
wished he had money, could hire one of those fleet taxi- 
cabs and take the poor creature to rest ; as he supported 
her he even had other visions, palanquins borne by 


202 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


negroes, softly swinging, followed by other negroes who 
fanned away the hot air with palm-leaves. Sometimes 
the girl stopped and seemed about to faint; then her 
energy would return and she would shake free from him. 

‘‘ I don’t want your help,” she snarled, as they rested 
awhile near Park Square. He smiled at her defiant 
face; she looked piteous and charming, so pale, so red- 
mouthed and blue-eyed; her long neck seemed to bend 
under the weight of her heavy ash-flaxen coils. 

“ There is a Chinese law,” he said, as he helped her 
along, “ that if a man prevents another from committing 
suicide he must provide for him for life. Like all laws 
it is bad, but as a practice it is not illogical. Come.” 

“ I am free,” said Karsavina, stopping on his door- 
step. “ Free from the control of my family, of the law, 
of all but hunger. I intend, so long as I choose, to be 
subject to nobody. So don’t misunderstand me if I come 
up.” 

‘‘ Don’t misunderstand me,” said Israel. It saddened 
him to think that this free spirit doubted his motives. 
Once in his room, however, Karsavina’s fierceness dis- 
appeared. While Kalisch, candle in hand, laid such 
food as he had on the three-legged table, she looked, with 
grateful eyes, at the deal washstand, the rotten carpet 
and the hideous blue and yellow walls. She looked at 
the bed, too, with the intense longing of the exhausted. 
She mechanically ate a little bread and some slices of 
sausage, drank a glassful of stale beer. Her stomach 
turned against the food ; she was dizzy, fell back in her 
chair. 

‘‘ You are tired,” said Israel gently. “ There is my 
bed.” 

He opened the door, went out on the black landing, 
leaving the door ajar. She heard him sit down, light a 


KARSAVINA 


cigarette. After a second of hesitation she began to 
undress. Her garments felt as heavy as a coat of mail ; 
she dropped them in a heap on the floor; her strength 
seemed to wane with every effort, her head to swim. 

Israel had heard her fall against the bed. Holding 
the candle high, he saw the slim body lying across the 
bed, still dressed in chemise and petticoat. 

“ She must sleep,” he reflected. He lifted her into 
the bed, arranged on the pillow the loose ash-flaxen hair, 
covered her up. She had opened her eyes and now they 
followed him a little fearfully as he walked about the 
room. She watched him take off his coat and waistcoat, 
roll them up and lay them in the opposite corner; then 
she started as if terrified when he blew out the candle. 
But he made no sound other than letting his clothes 
fall on the floor. Her hands clenched as he moved about, 
but he seemed merely to strip the tablecloth from the 
table. Then she heard him lie down in his corner, say 
softly — 

“ Sleep well, Karsavina.” 

Some minutes later his breathing became heavier; he 
began to snore. The leaden weariness came over her 
again, pressed down on her eyelids. Fear receded and 
dwindled while the exhaustion of her whole body grew 
invincible. The faintly-lit window became a blur. She 
slept. 


II 

Karsavina opened her eyes to an extraordinary sight. 
A young man with a short red beard, immense blue eyes 
and a heavy mass of copper locks, stood by her bedside, 
playing on the violin a wild little tune which she seemed 
to know. The sun was blazing in, and the man stood in 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


^04 

the radiance. She recognised a fragment irom Carmen. 
The player smiled at her ; his blue eyes were dreamy, his 
teeth splendid, framed in the red beard. She was 
amazed ; he was so big, so high in colour, this kindly 
spirit of the night, and so new that Karsavina had to 
piece together her memories. 

She smiled, and at once Israel laid down the bow. 

‘‘ Well.? ” he asked. “ Better.? Do you like this way 
of waking up, or would you prefer the Preobajensky 
band .?” 

‘‘ Koracho” said Karsavina sleepily, unable to find an 
English word. 

‘T don’t speak Russian,” said Kalisch, “ but I know 
that means ‘ good.’ Get up if you like, I must go in 
half-an-hour.” 

“ I will get up,” said Karsavina, but made no move- 
ment. 

“ Well, do not be long,” said Israel. He went to the 
window, threw up the sash and leant out. 

After hesitating again Karsavina got out of bed, 
uttered a sharp exclamation. 

“ What is the matter ? ” Kalisch asked. 

‘‘ I went to bed with my boots on.” 

‘‘ It was the beer. People often do after beer,” said 
Kalisch, without turning his head. He heard her laugh, 
laugh in sheer peals of gaiety. They talked as she 
dressed, as she hurriedly washed at the deal washstand. 
That did not take long. 

“ You may turn round now,” said Karsavina. 

Without hurrying Israel turned round and looked at 
her. There was a peculiar expression on her face; she 
smiled, but humbly, gratefully, as if a little ashamed of 
her suspicion of this man who was with such tact making 
a difficult situation easy. In the light of the morning 


KARSAVINA 


205 


she was not the haggard girl he had some hours before 
rescued from drowning; she was stiil pale, but not 
uniformly so, for there was a faint colour in her cheeks, 
and if a zone of mauve surrounded her eyes it only made 
them seem bluer and deeper. They examined each 
other : Isral at once decided that she was pretty, perhaps 
more than pretty, that he liked her features, and above 
all her flaxen hair. Karsavina was more critical : 
though she admired his bigness and the copper glitter 
of his hair she thought his mouth and nose coarse. But 
his great eyes, blue as hers, as dreamy as hers were 
bright, made her forget everything else of him, feel that 
she liked him. So dreamy were the eyes that she was 
piqued; archly she smiled. 

“Well,” he asked, “ what are we going to do? ” 

“ I go to work in fifteen minutes. I wish I had coffee 
to offer you, but ...” His hands were apologetic. 
“ Still, there is some beer, and here is bread, and the 
remains of the sausage.” 

Karsavina laughed, dragged the chairs to the table, 
bare of the cloth in which Israel had slept, set out the 
food. 

Merrily they ate, finished the beer. As the sausage 
dwindled Israel stopped her ; she would gladly have eaten 
it all, for she was young and the horror of the night was 
far away. 

“ No more,” said Israel good-temperedly, “ that is 
your midday meal.” 

“ Oh,” said Karsavina. She drew in her breath. 
“ Oh, yes . . . what am I to do ? ” 

Israel did not reply for some seconds, for he wondered 
at the appeal. 

“ Do ? ” he said. “ Oh, I think you had better go out 
and look for work. Whether you find it or not come 


g06 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


back here every night, the door will never be closed, and 
so long as there is food you shall share it with me.” 

“ Thank you,” said Karsavina. Her voice was low, 
her eyes fixed on the table. 

“Now I must go,” said Israel. He stood up, looked 
round the room for his hat. 

“ Comrade Kalisch,” said Karsavina hurriedly, “ you 
are . . . you are not like other men. Thank you. 
It was worth while being saved by you.” 

“ Do you want anything else.?^ ” asked Kalisch, with- 
out acknowledging the thanks. 

“ Yes,” said Karsavina after a pause. She smiled, 
roguishly almost. “ Something I’ve wanted more than 
food.” 

“ A cigarette,” Israel guessed, “ here is one.” He 
held out a paper packet. They lit their cigarettes from 
the same match. 

“ Ah,” Karsavina sighed, then voluptuously, “ Turk- 
ish.” 

“ Yes,” said Israel, “ my one extravagance ; a brown 
girl in Howland Street makes me ten for twopence.” 

There was a knock at the door. Karsavina leapt to 
her feet. The rakish air of the cigarette contrasted 
with her sudden blush. 

“ Come in,” said Kalisch calmly. 

Warsch, as he opened the door, stared at both of 
them, made as if to shut the door, then as if to enter. 
He was acutely embarrassed. 

“ I beg pardon ... I beg pardon ...” 

“ Come in,” Kalisch repeated. “ Warsch, this is a 
comrade, Karsavina. She has suffered alone. Be her 
friend.” 

Warsch shook the girl by the hand and, as he did so, 
inspected her, then glanced at Kalisch, half interroga- 


KARSAVINA 207 

tively. The bourgeois portion of his brain drew con- 
clusions so obvious that Kalisch spoke. 

“ She is free of my room ... if she returns. Now 
we go ; come, Warsch. Comrade Karsavina, I wish you 
luck.” 

When the men’s heavy footsteps had died away on the 
stairs Karsavina delayed awhile, examined every article 
of furniture, looked under the bed, read the titles of 
Kalisch’s books, which were piled in a corner. She was 
like a cat reconnoitring a new home. Then she stripped 
off her old black blouse and washed, for she had been 
too nervous to do so at all thoroughly. She made the 
bed, assuming that but for her Israel would have made 
it himself, threw open the windows to look at sun-bathed 
Cleveland Street, full of barrows of vegetables and fruit. 
Quickly she packed up the bread and sausage in a piece 
of newspaper, pinned on her battered sailor hat. 

“No mirror,” she remarked aloud; then, “That’s a 
man, tac-tac.” 

She went downstairs slowly, noting as she passed the 
clank of the old printer’s hand-press, held her head very 
stiffly as she passed among the waiters on the stairs, 
heard Cazot mutter as he lifted his head from a frame — 

“ He, elle est pas trop degueulasse, la gonzesse.'^ 

Karsavina, as she turned into the Tottenham Court 
Road, where already dust was rising in the morning 
heat, felt extraordinarily happy; the loneliness of two 
years seemed suddenly to have been lifted and replaced 
by a warm atmosphere of friendship which did not 
threaten to become a thrall. She was free, and yet had 
a prop. What a paradox ! 

“ That’s a man, tac-tac,” she irrelevantly murmured. 


^08 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


III 

The Little Goodge Street Club accepted Karsavina 
with an equanimity that was almost indifference. 
Kalisch took her there as a matter of course. Leit- 
meritz snarled a greeting to her ; Ekaterina held out her 
firm white hand and said that all women who dared to 
rebel were her sisters. 

“ You should know my sister Esther,” said Jonas, and 
he swelled a little consciously, “ she is a suffragette.” 

“ Has she been in prison ” asked Ekaterina. “ No? 
Well, let her go to prison. It’ll teach her to value 
liberty.” 

‘‘ Oh, father would make a fuss,” said Jonas, laugh- 
ing. 

“No doubt. Until your father makes a fuss your 
sister has done nothing. The first proof of a daughter’s 
emancipation is the anger of her family.” 

The conversation became confused, for Karsavina 
clapped her hands and briefly told how she had fought 
her rising relatives and run away, while Lydotchka, see- 
ing that Ekaterina approved of the recruit, loudly sup- 
ported her views ; Jonas, somewhat embarrassed, with- 
drew from the group, towards which Sonia had now 
drifted, so that the women all stood together. 

“ You know,” he said to Kalisch, drawing him aside, 
“it’s all very well, I quite agree with them, but it’s so 
difficult to do what you want.” 

“ It is,” said Israel, “ one is so weak.” 

“ No, I don’t mean that. Everything makes it so 
difficult. Here am I, I’ve grown up to see my people 
getting on, and been to Cambridge to see men preparing 
to be bishops and members of Parliament. And I’ve 
had enough to eat, so long as I remember. Now I’ve 


KARSAVINA 


209 


got a profession, as they call it, because even I wouldn’t 
like it called a trade. It’s go on I must, teaching re- 
spectability to the respectable, wearing clean collars, 
conforming. I can’t get drunk. I’d be dismissed, and 
what would my father say.? I can’t do anything but 
teach. It’s a machine, Kalisch, and it’s got me. I’ve 
got to pretend, and if I stop pretending the world will 
smash me up. W^here’s the light.? There is no light, 
not even in me, for I want money, not as much as my 
father, but still I want — what.? — regular work, cul- 
ture, a wife, enough money . . . Kalisch, I can’t get 
away. I suppose it’s respectability I want, I can’t get 
away.” 

Israel smiled sadly ; this abasement made him sorrow- 
ful, but he saw very well how it was with Jonas. Strug- 
gle as he might he could not free himself entirely from 
his traditions and upbringing. Silently he listened to 
Galgenstcin’s story, as it came from him broken and in- 
terrupted by cries of weak revolt. He heard again 
about the fish shops, the villa, the increasing fortune, 
the rising blood ; about Esther’s fashionable friends, the 
rising blood ; about Sarah, her desire to marry a Chris- 
tian doctor, again the rising blood. And again about 
the family. 

“ All our family,” said Jonas quickly, “ they’re the 
same. Worse. The Fegers, ah, they’re above us, 
they’re making more money; they can afford to be Im- 
perialists ; one of the sons is a volunteer and tho other’s 
a doctor. And the d’ Almeidas, we never see them, 
they’re too rich ; they’ve got to the point of thinking the 
army not good enough for their clever boys, and they’re 
so proud that the girls have refused peers for Portu- 
guese Jews. Ah, Kalisch, it maddens me, all this . . . 
it maddens my father . . . but he, at least, he’s got 


210 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


hope. They’ll know him if he makes enough money. 
But I, I, what’s the good of me.?^ I suffer because 
they don’t think me good enough, and I’d suffer more 
if they thought me good enough because I had more 
money.” 

“ Cut loose,” said Kalisch gently, “ cut loose. Leave 
the money. Ask the woman of your choice to follow 
you, earn your living, enjoy such life as lies before you, 
and strike a blow for your fellows.” 

Galgenstein sighed. He was more tempted to obey 
than he would have been four months before, for he was 
paying within his family the price of his extreme views. 
He had rashly let them out during a dock strike which 
had caused Solomon Galgenstein, Ltd., considerable in- 
convenience. Mr. Galgenstein had cursed the men, de- 
clared that, failing surrender, the unions should be 
penalised, broken up; that picketing should be made 
illegal, the union funds subject to confiscation. The dis- 
cussion had degenerated into a sharp, snarling rough- 
and-tumble ; Jonas and his father had behaved like dogs 
fighting in a gutter. 

“ Liberalism I don’t mind,” said Mr. Galgenstein, 
“but this is revolution.” 

“ Well, what if it is.? ” 

“ We don’t want revolution. Let every man know his 
place.” 

“No man has a place. We have equal rights.” 

“ Oh, indeed — Socialism ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Theft, then. Intimidation. You’ll be an An- 
archist, next thing.” 

“ Well, I am.” 

“ You’re a fool.” 

“ You’re my father.” 


KARSAVINA 


^11 


They had brawled on, soon speaking the language of 
the streets in the unemotionally respectable dining-room, 
undeterred by Mrs. Galgenstein’s feeble “ Jonas dear’s ” 
and “ but, Solly’s,” while Sarah looked on, frightened, 
and Esther assumed the critically unmoved air of one 
who has seen active service. But when it was over and 
Jonas went out all hot with his father’s insults, he was 
deeply ashamed. He had been soiled by this vulgarity, 
and yet was so low that he could not rebel against it, 
cut loose. All this he told Kalisch, who listened without 
interrupting him, as sorrowful as if Jonas were a child 
who complained of having been beaten. But soon 
Lydotchka interfered, sidled up to Jonas. 

“ Aren’t you glad to come here,” she murmured, 
‘‘ isn’t it encouraging.'^ ” 

She threw him a shy look which said, “ To see me ? 
Haven’t you anything to say to me.?* ” 

“ Yes,” said Jonas, unconscious of her wiles, “ and no. 
You’re so strong, all of you, so hard. I couldn’t do the 
things you do.” 

‘‘ Oh, you could, comrade, you could. Oh, if you’d 
listen to Ekaterina, she ...” then for the first time 
Lydotchka’s loyalty was swamped by egotism. “ You 
see, I’m not like that. I’m only a humble little dis- 
ciple.” 

“ So am I,” said Jonas, and for a moment liked her 
innocence. Then he heard Karsavina’s voice raised in 
argument. 

“ Force. Yes, Ekaterina Viktorovna, you are right. 
Love is a swindle.” 

“ Good,” said Leitmeritz, “ that’s the thing. Tac, 
it’ll be a fine thing, next strike. We’ll make the bour- 
geois go hungry.” 

‘‘ You’ll go hungry too,” said Warsch. 


212 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


“ Who cares ? ” Karsavina’s eyes grew fiery. ‘‘ I’ve 
been hungry when the bourgeois were full. A little 
fellowship, say I.” 

There was laughter at this grim sally, and Karsavina, 
merry and fierce, held the floor, clamoured for a volunteer 
to make history. Placid Sonia, who had gone back to 
the corner where, by the light of a candle, she was 
making herself a skirt, came and listened to her. 

“ Get out of the way, Sonia,” Leitmeritz snarled, 
“ back to your saucepans.” 

“ Let the woman alone,” said Ekaterina. 

“ Never mind, Ekaterina Viktorovna, he’s my man: I 
don’t care what he says.” 

Sonia was allowed to listen to the new apostle, who so 
bravely stamped and shook her ash-flaxen hair, so 
fiercely proclaimed the right to live at the price of the 
right to kill. Israel, sitting alone by the window, some- 
times looked out vacantly into the night, at the dim 
lights of the charcuterie, sometimes listened for a minute 
to the loud debate in which whirled Karsavina, Ekaterina 
and Leitmeritz, while irrelevant Sonia, Jonas and Ly- 
dotchka fluttered on the outside of the vortex. He lost 
consciousness of time as it sped, of the room, now full of 
tobacco-smoke. Eyes fixed upon the black street, he 
saw naught save, at the corner, the vermilion naphtha 
flare of a fruit barrow. Then Warsch came to him, 
began to speak of Lina; for he had progressed, was 
verloht to the pink-and-white daughter of Mossel, the 
Charlotte Street confectioner. 

“ Old Mossel is coming round,” he whispered. “ Do 
you know, Israel, I went in to-day and he said, ‘ How 
you getting on, Mr. Warsch.? Saving any money?’ 
Now that was clear enough, wasn’t it? ” 

“Yes,” said Kalisch; “when a pickpocket asks 


KARSAVINA 


213 


whether you have money, mind your purse; when it’s a 
confectioner with a daughter, mind your heart.” 

“ Oh, why be cynical ? ” 

“ I’m not cynical. But, dear friend, I know. Marry 
Lina, if it’s going to make you happy. What more do 
you want ? ” 

“ I want . . .” Warsch thought for a long time, 
brushed up his Kaiser moustache. I don’t know what 
I want.” 

‘‘ You want the flesh and the devil. You want Lina, 
safety, children, arm-chairs, seats in the pit at the 
theatre; and you want the social revolution, universal 
happiness, beauty and adventure. Dear Warsch, it 
can’t be done.” 

“ Must I choose.? ” said the big German, thoughtfully. 

“ Yes. But not yet. The event will come and your 
soul will choose for you. Wait, learn to be strong and 
above all to obey your soul. It is not easy : it is so much 
easier to obey the world.” 

“ The event will come,” Warsch repeated. 

“ Yes,” said Israel softly, “ the event which lies be- 
fore us, as certain as the coming dawn, and as un- 
seen.” 

“ i wonder when I shall marry Lina.” Warsch was 
almost soliloquising. 

“ Ah, Warsch, butter-heart that you are. Marry, 
marry, that is your cry. Women are everything for 
you.” 

“Well, what have you to say?” the big German 
blustered. “ You’re not alone.” 

Almost imperceptibly he Indicated Karsavina by 
raising an eyebrow. 

“Oh?” Israel looked at him as if amused. “Is 
that what you think? You are . . . oh, you are what 


214 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


you are, and you do not surprise me. Do you want to 
know the truth? ” 

Israel told him the story of the rescue and of his 
impulse to hospitality. 

“ But,” Warsch whispered at last, “ it can’t go on 
like that.” 

« Why not? ” 

“ It . . . it’s impossible . . . it’s not natural.” 

“ Why should a thing be natural to me because it is 
natural to others? Do understand me: if I needed 
woman in my life woman would enter it. In the past 
woman did. But the past is never the present in a 
creature that grows. Woman is not woman for me, she 
is humanity. If I am anything I am a light, or I bear 
one; the time will come when I must go forth against 
the world : can I go with impedimenta? Can I go carry- 
ing upon my back a pack of loves and affections, self- 
created obligations? No, I must stand alone, be Ibsen’s 
strong man, alone in the wilderness of the world without 
anything to hamper me. I must be naught but a light.” 

“ Yes,” said Warsch at last, shaken by the slow, 
earnest words, “ I understand you better, Israel.” He 
looked at his friend’s fine, serious face. “ You are not 
impulsive, reckless, like us ; you are not quite a man, 
or you are more than a man. You are, as you say, a 
light, a light that shines in the darkness.” 

They remained silent for long time. The Club was 
quieter now, for Perekop had come in, was telling his 
story to Karsavina and Jonas, the former hot with rage, 
the latter torn with pity. The childlike voice droned on 
as the mujik fixed upon his hearers his long black eyes. 

“ . . . Oh, for Christ’s sake believe me,” I said, “ I 
have no friends.” “ Beat him until he confesses,” said 
the harm in green. So they beat me with sticks upon 
the back, three or four more policemen came in . . 


CHAPTER II 


LOVE FORGES LINKS 

I 

It was a peculiar bond that united Israel and Karsa- 
vina. The awkwardness of the first night persisted, 
grew worse, for it was in the nature of the position to 
become more abnormal because it was abnormal. Dur- 
ing the day, when Israel was at Kohn’s and Karsavina 
hunting for work among the sweaters’ shops in Blooms- 
bury and Clerkenwell, the difficulty of the night did not 
appear as great; both tended to forget it. It did not 
trouble Israel as much as it did Karsavina; he had not 
been able to escape the point of view common to his 
friends, that there might be more in this association than 
he made out, but his brain was fully occupied with other 
ideas ; as he fingered the furs in the heat of the workshop 
— for not even in July were its windows open — or when 
he, with growing deftness, lined and padded muffs with 
hay or flock, his thoughts turned rather to general spec- 
ulation, to good and evil, to the nature of moral beauty, 
to evolution and such-like things, than to the picture of 
the girl whose heavy, ash-flaxen hair sat in coils over her 
pale face. Even in the moods of languor which over- 
came him most often in those sun-rich days, when his 
brain conjured up dissolving views of heat-baked sands, 
palm trees and little fiery horses, he did not evoke Karsa- 
vina as the houri in the paradise. It was not because he 
did not see or admire what could truly be called her 
beauty: often he examined her point by point, appre- 
ciating her smallness and slimness, the deep blue of her 
21S 


S16 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


eyes, the purplish red colour of her mouth, and the 
sprightly, almost arch grace of her carriage. But he 
looked at her very much as he had found himself looking 
at a picture of Voltaire for its wrinkles, the humour of 
its hooked nose and wide mouth, or at the young wres- 
tlers of bronze on the Embankment. 

When Karsavina found him so looking at her she was 
always a little disturbed, partly because she could not 
gauge the quality of his gaze, and partly because she 
was not herself detached. Often, on her search for 
work, she discovered herself remembering Israel’s face, 
mentally valuing his features ; they fascinated rather 
than attracted her, for she could not be blind to the 
coarseness of his nose and mouth, but she found that she 
drove these features into the keep of her consciousness, 
that she dwelled rather on the misty blue of his eyes, on 
the red mane which she was now tempted to touch. 
“ That hair,” she thought, “ it must feel like . . . like 
the hard tail of a horse, and yet be soft ; it must be hard 
because it is thick.” The idea of touching his hair re- 
curred to her often; she found that she watched him in 
the early morning, when he stood at the window, because 
his hair glittered in the sun. Every hair of his thin 
moustache and beard seemed then to live, to glow. It 
was because of this her embarrassment grew. She 
wanted to turn away when he laid upon her his cool gaze, 
and yet she invited it. 

A week had elapsed and Karsavina still accepted his 
hospitality, for she had not yet found work. One op- 
portunity had offered, but the wage was but eight shil- 
lings, a sum on which she could not live; she must, she 
felt, be quite free from Israel, her dignity demanded it. 
It was better, she thought, to sacrifice it for a while than 
to have to accept help for an indefinite time. So she 


KARSAVINA 


217 

continued to use his bed, but she was remorseful, sug- 
gested that she should sleep in the corner in his stead 
and, on his refusing to exchange places, contrived for 
him a couch made of old packing material given her by 
Cazot. For Karsavina had made friends with the in- 
habitants of Cleveland Street; the big family had not 
noticed her ; it was too big, too busy with itself, but she 
was popular with Cazot and his young wife ; the waiters 
on the stairs had become accustomed to her haughty air 
and did not interfere with her ; while the German clerk, 
taught respect by a brutal snub, had become a polite, 
hat-lifting person. Warsch she liked, and he, while a 
little afraid of her, thought it good that Israel should 
have a companion : it would humanise him ; on the other 
hand, it might humanise him too much ; but he liked 
Karsavina, her good looks and her fierce frankness. 
Had it not been for Lina Mossel he might have fallen in 
love with her. Schund was usually too drunk to notice 
her, but apparently he liked her in his brutish, dog-like 
way, probably because Warsch liked her. On the fourth 
morning he knocked at Kalisch’s door, came in. Kara- 
savina was washing, wore naught save her chemise. 

“ What d’you want ? ” she asked, as she dried her 
neck. 

Schund looked at her face, flushed by the rub- 
bing of the towel, at her bare feet, then remarked heav- 
ily — 

“ Are your boots clean ? ” 

“ What’s that to do with you, idiot.? ” said Karsavina. 

“ I’ll clean them for you. I got blacking.” 

‘‘ Oh ! ” Karsavina understood. The creature wanted 
to show his liking for her in his dumb, churlish way. 

There they are.” She pointed with a bare foot. 

Schund took them up without a word, glanced at 


218 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


Kalisch whose broad back blocked up the window, and 
opened the door. 

“ I say, Schund,” said Israel, and made as if to turn 
round. 

“ Don’t move,” Karsavina screamed. A blush spread 
over her face, her shoulders. “ Get out, Schund,” she 
shouted to relieve the tension. 

No words passed while Karsavina finished drying and 
dressed as quickly as she could. Her mind was seething. 
She had cried out quite instinctively when Israel seemed 
about to turn round, and yet she had been quite calm 
while Schund stood in front of her looking steadily 
at her bare arms and feet. The significance of it did not 
escape her; she was shy, afraid that Israel should enjoy 
a familiarity she would have denied nobody else. She 
reflected that she felt no objection to having a bath in 
presence of the whole club ... if Israel were not in 
the room. And yet, working very subtly, faint resent- 
ment was in her mind ; for Kalisch had not turned round, 
his movement had been instinctive. Tac-tac, he was a 
fine man, but . . . 

Israel showed no sign of embarrassment when she 
faced him, faintly blushing, and so deliberately uncon- 
cerned as to be aggressive. He had noticed the incident, 
but, while Karsavina dressed, he had looked into the 
street, counted the advertisements at the grocer’s and 
tried to calculate the social waste. He had forgotten 
all about her. 

“ Say, Karsavina,” he remarked, with genuine calm, 
“ let’s go out to-night. Pay-day, you know ; let us go 
to a music-hall because the people are happy there.” 

“ Thank you. I should like to.” Karsavina’s voice 
was harsh ; she was impressed by his delicacy, his fine- 
ness, but insulted. She guessed that the odd incident 


KARSAVINA 


K19 


had left no trace on his mind. But Kalisch did not ap- 
pear to see that she accepted his courtesy much as a 
surly dog accepts a bone. He had not the vindictive 
temperament of those who, in an inimical spirit of love, 
turn the other cheek. He hardly realised that he was 
smitten on the cheek. That night he took her to the 
music-hall, after they had eaten in the Euston Road. It 
was a delightful meal; a penny bowl of pea-soup was 
followed by sausages and mashed, which cost two- 
pence-half penny. The sausages were deliciously fried in 
onions and grease. Then came a slab and a piece of 
Canadian Cheddar, washed down by a cup of coffee which 
was quite good if one drunk it so carefully as not to dis- 
turb the grounds. Israel looked intently at the girl. 
She was still pale and thin ; she was worn by her search 
for work done entirely on foot, for she would take no 
money from him ; besides, he could not feed her very well. 
But there was some gaiety in her blue eyes, laughter on 
her lips ; her black skirt and her dark-blue blouse were 
as well brushed as possible, her hands clean, if rather 
worn about the finger-nails. She had, for the occasion, 
managed to find a festal garment: she was not wearing 
her sailor hat, but had drawn through her ash-flaxen 
hair a blue ribbon, presumably a gift from Madame 
Cazot, which wound in and out of the heavy coils of hair 
on the nape of her long neck. 

‘‘ You look fine,” he said at length. 

Karsavina laughed uneasily, stole a glance at him as 
he watched her, his chin propped up by both hands, 
smiling through the red bush of his upthrust beard. 
Her heart was beating, for this was the first time he had 
seemed to notice her beauty. But he went no further, 
smoked on silently, his eyes now averted from her and 
fixed upon a corner of the tavern in which was nothing 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


220 

more thrilling than a very, old cabman asleep against 
the dirty wall. Nor did he seem to notice her either, 
indeed to notice anything, when later at the music-hall 
Karsavina clenched both hands over the iron bars of the 
gallery to see the cross-talk comedians. 

‘‘ When I met my friend Lord Fauntleroy, haw-haw,” 
said the immaculate comedian, “ in the Strand, he 
said ...” 

Have a banana,” suggested the battered comedian. 

‘‘ Have a banana . . . You’re a fool.” 

“ You’re a gentleman. Now we’re both liars.” 

“ I despise you, Algernon. He said . . . ” 

“ Algernon, he said,” remarked the battered one. 

“ He did not. He said Edgar. I am Edgar.” 

“Why didn’t you say so? You don’t look it.” 

A roar of laughter rose from the crowd, Karsavina 
giggled. 

“ Don’t look what? ” 

“ Didn’t say you looked what.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” 

“ What I say.” Smack, battered one picked in 
several places. 

The immaculate and the battered one went on with 
their intricate conversation while Karsavina giggled 
under Israel’s amused eyes ; round them the crowd 
roared, sucked at its pipes, ate cherries and occasionally 
kissed, though most of its couples sat orderly enough 
with linked hands, close squeezed. After the comedians 
came the performing dogs. The foreign waiter-like 
gentleman was not a success. 

“ Ain’t any of yer got any dog’s ’omes ? ” asked a 
voice as one of the mongrels ran away from the burning 
candle which he ought to have snuffed. 

The dog-trainer grew nervous, his dogs rebellious. 


KARSAVINA 


^21 

They leapt the wrong obstacles, lost their places, were 
cuffed to a resounding shout of “ Shime.” Then two 
dogs ran behind the scene and twenty voices roared to- 
gether — 

“ Give ’em the bird ! Give ’em the blarsted bird.” 

The dogs were given “ the bird ” in the form of hisses 
and garnished views, the curtain was lowered. Israel 
had said nothing, now sat smoking by Karsavina’s side. 
She turned to him. 

“ Poor man, what a shame to chivvy him off.” 

“ Chivvy ? ” asked Kalisch. 

“ You’re not a Cockney, I forgot,” said Karsavina, 
smiling ; “ drive him off.” 

“ A shame to drive him off — why ? Why should 
they suffer him if he does not please them? Let them 
rebel.” 

“ Oh, as you like.” Karsavina was annoyed. She 
did not just then want a generality. She wanted a 
moment of ease, sympathy. She did not want thought, 
she wanted laughter. They did not speak between the 
turns — refined sopranos, Scotch comedians and eccen- 
tric dancers. After the sketch, laid in Mayfair and 
inspired with patriotism and burglary, she tried to atone 
for her sharpness. 

“ Don’t you think it silly ? ” she asked. 

“ Very, but then they like it silly.” 

The violinist brought them together again. She was 
a fine Italian girl, short but splendidly built, brutally 
buxom in her tight red bodice; her eyes glowed under 
her fierce eyebrows as she played, unexpectedly enough, 
Thais, and then Ernst’s Airs Russes. She was harsh 
this girl. La Barbara, as they called her, and fierce as 
she drew beauty from the eruptive notes of Ernst. The 
crowd listened devoutly, without interrupting, smoking 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


or munching fruit, cheered her, recalled *her again and 
again.” 

‘‘That’s fine,” said Karsavina dreamily, as La Bar- 
bara bowed to the crowd with an air of hostile satisfac- 
tion. 

“ Yes, that’s fine. It pleases the beasts, but it does 
not make them more like the beasts. It makes them a 
little drunk, it makes them feel that there is somewhere 
beauty to be gained.” 

“ Yes, that’s true,” said Karsavina. “ I’m glad you 
don’t despise the people. They are what they can be, 
aren’t they.? ” 

“ They are. And one day . . . they will be as 

fine as their hidden souls.” 

Already another Cockney comedian was on the scene, 
rather like a mediaeval figure in the legs, for one trouser- 
leg was brown and the other black, but the illusion col- 
lapsed before the check waistcoat, the small bowler and 
the vermilion nose. 

“ Chise me, Chise me, Chise me all around,’* 

shouted the comedian, dancing desperately from foot to 
foot — 

“I’m the jolly bankrupt: a tanner in the pound. 

They know me in the City, they know me at the Bank, 

They know me when I’m cadging near the old cab rank. 

I’ve money in my pocket, I got a girl in tow, 

I got a tip for Kempton because I’m in the know. 

And that’s why they chise me, chise me all around, 
’Cos I’m the jolly bankrupt: a tanner in the pound.” 

Karsavina was not interested ; while the crowd took up 


KARSAVINA 




the chorus she looked at Israel from the corner of one 
eye. He seemed to be neither looking nor listening; in 
the half light of the gallery his eyes were immense, and 
there was a droop of sadness about his mouth that made 
her long to hold him to her and ask whether she could 
comfort him. Round them the chorus was turning into 
a mere rhythmic roar. The man ended his song — 

Chise me, chise me, chise me all around, 

I’m the jolly bankrupt: a tanner in the pound. 

They know me at the Carlton, they know me at the Ritz, 

They know me too at Lockhart’s, where I picks up the 
bits. 

I sleeps on the Embankment, it’s airier down there, 

I rides in Black Maria, it doesn’t charge a fare. 

And that’s why they chise me, chise me all around, 
I’m the jolly bankrupt: a tanner in the pound.” 

Before the cheers had subsided the screen was down. 
The hall was in the darkness that precedes the bioscope. 
Karsavina saw Israel as a black silhouette against the 
light wall. He sat back in his scat, seemed remote from 
his fellows. Without any deliberation, she slid out her 
hand and took his. He did not resist, turned his head 
to look at her: she could just see the dark outline of 
his eye-sockets, but she was in a whirl as, for the first 
time, she voluntarily held this firm, warm hand. She 
did not know what she was saying; she wanted to tell 
him that she reproached herself for her impatience. 

‘‘Sorry,” she faltered, “sorry ...” 

Israel paused, then remembered, smiled. Could such 
things be important? 

“ That was nothing, comrade,” he said gently. He 
pressed her fingers, then put back her hand upon her 
knee. 




UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


She did not look at the bioscope pictures. She saw 
naught save the white shape of her hand on her knee, 
open, with outstretched fingers. He had put her hand 
back on her knee. He had not retained her hand. 


II 

The relation did not alter; its peculiarities merely 
became more pronounced; on Karsavina’s part it grew 
more embarrassing, on Israel’s more conscious. She 
knew now that she valued this man’s opinion of her. 
Though he did not seem to notice her he had told her 
that she had looked fine, and that he should say this 
once showed that he could say it again. She shrank 
from analysing her wish to make him say it again, and 
she burned when she thought he might be saying it in 
his heart as he looked at her. She was so grievously in- 
sulted because he had not held her offered hand that she 
thought she would resent his touch, and yet she called 
for it. She suspected that she wanted to win him now 
because he had not proved easy to win, but she suspected 
too that there would be more in her triumph than mere 
glory. She wanted to touch his hand again, to seize his 
red beard, draw her fingers through his thick hair, and 
she swore to herself too that she would cut her hands off 
rather than do so ; and if he touched her first she would 
insult him, thrust him away . . . unless she clung to 
him. This chaotic state of mind made her erratic; her 
moods changed as rapidly as April air from warmth to 
chilliness, and this increased her charms, imparted to 
her an uncertainty which should have fired him by per- 
petually making him wonder whether an advance would 
find her fierce or yielding. 


KARSAVINA 


S25 


But he did not seem to notice her. He neither ap- 
proved nor disapproved of her ; he took her, as he took 
all those he liked, just as she was. He was indifferent 
to her anger or her mirth, looked upon them as part of 
a temperament which he accepted as a whole. He would 
as soon have reproached her for being ill-tempered as for 
being flushed or pale. On the last day of her stay with 
him, a Sunday, he took her without intention through 
London to Chelsea. It was afternoon, the heavy sultri- 
ness of July hung over the river, which flowed eastwards 
so slowly that one might have thought it stupefied by 
the heat. The trees upon the Embankment hung every 
one of their leaves, separate like thpse of a half-charred 
book. Opposite, in a mist of heat, lay Battersea Park ; 
near them, from a block of flats they could hear a piano 
being played with extraordinary slowness. A woman in 
white, with three men in light suits, lay half prostrate 
on the balcony of one of the flats. 

“ Look at those two,” she said, “ see the man’s hair. 
It is red-gold as a guinea, as Blake says.” 

“ A vulgar, natural colour,” said one of the men, 
“ natural henna . . . and by his side, natural perox- 
ide. Why ever don’t they buy a bottle each and ex- 
change ? ” 

They were certainly a striking couple, these two, as 
they leant over the stone parapet, the man broad and 
strong, the girl small, slim and gracefully boyish in 
lines. Seen from the back their masses of red and 
flaxen hair looked like wigs in a hairdresser’s window, 
as impressive in their suggestion of bigness. The few 
who passed them by, walking slowly in the heat, 
felt compelled to look at them, to admire the regular 
beauty of the girl, the stranger, romantic wildness 


226 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


of the man. Years of England or America had done 
nothing for them ; they were foreign, foreign in 
feature, in attitude, in clothing. No Englishman could 
have worn Kalisch’s loose trousers, his black coat 
and his flowing blue tie (for he despised the 
demonstrative red), together with his stained, black 
slouch hat; nor, especially, could he have worn those 
heavy red waves of hair that made the washing of the 
scalp so difficult. But then Israel did not bother about 
his scalp; when it itched he scratched it. He was not 
an Englishman, and therefore did not find dirt and 
poverty degrading ; while Englishmen, removed from 
soap and adequate wages sank to brute level, he could 
divorce his mind from his body, think his thoughts 
though his linen was soiled. He was not singular in 
this, for Leitmeritz and Perekop felt no need of baths, 
while Warsch’s cleanly habits were, in those days, prob- 
ably traceable to his pursuit of Lina Mossel. Karsa- 
vina too, though some fifteen years separated her from 
Russia, though she was anglicised enough to care for 
her body, preserved a style of hairdressing, a taste in 
clothes which marked her out from among the English 
working girls. She gave the impression of wearing 
better stays ; one could feel that her petticoats were not 
dropping from her hips, that her stockings could not 
slip from her garters, because these would be taken in 
when their elasticity decreased. Like most foreign 
women the art of her clothes was in the invisible, not in 
the visible with which the English girls vainly try to 
conceal secret slovenliness. Her boots were bad, but 
well blacked, thanks to Sehund, and they lacked no but- 
tons. While poverty failed to drag down the man, be- 
cause his soul was free from the body, it could not drag 
down the girl because she retained a traditional pride 


KARSAVINA 


m 

in the charm of clothing. She did not look unemployed. 

But then Karsavina was no longer out of work. On 
the morrow she would begin as a tailoress in a den abut- 
ting exactly behind the most luxurious block of shops in 
Oxford Street. The wages were guaranteed as fourteen 
shillings a week, but piece-work might increase them to a 
pound if reasonable energy were displayed for sixteen 
hours a day. She had not yet told Kalisch that she was 
leaving him that day; she had tried to believe that she 
had hidden the new fact from him because she thought 
he might feel hurt, and indeed she flattered herself that 
he would miss her ; but burnt into her was the knowledge 
that he would not care long if he cared at all, that he 
would return alone to his room, glance at the blue and 
yellow paper, pronounce it ugly, and then sit down in 
front of the candle at the three-legged table, open some 
book and forget her. 

Karsavina was nearly moved to tears by self-pity as 
she constructed the scene; she tried to believe that she 
was sorry for him, for his loneliness, but self-pity 
swamped her ; she saw herself, not him, as alone ; she did 
not want to think of the room she had already hired in 
Chitty Street. She was so moved, so weary and so near 
tears that she spoke sharply, almost angrily; she could 
be neither gentle nor casual ; the quality of her emotion 
was too bitter. 

“ Israel,” she said suddenly, “ I’m leaving you to- 
night.” 

“Are you.^” he said. He turned towards her from 
the sleepy water. “ Why? ” 

“ I’ve found some work. Not less than fourteen bob 
a week. So I’m going. I’ve got a room in Chitty 
Street. I’m going to-night.” 

“ You need not have gone,” said Israel reflectively, as 


2^8 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


he lit a cigarette and watched the match idle eastwards 
on the water. “ Still,” he added after a pause, “ it 
wasn’t very comfortable for you.” 

“ Comfortable,” cried Karsavina. She tried to speak, 
but was so angry that she could not frame a sentence. 
As if comfort, bourgeois decency, all that, as if it mat- 
tered. An insult. “ I don’t care if it isn’t comfort- 
able,” she said at last, “ I’ve got to be free.” 

“May be, may be,” said Israel gently. “Well, I’m 
sorry. You were welcome to stay, but go, then, if your 
soul needs freedom.” 

“ I must be free,” said Karsavina harshly, as if he 
were trying to overrule her ; the harshness was for her- 
self ; it was her own desire she must overrule. 

“ True,” said Israel, “ we must all be free.” 

“ I have broken away from my family, from conven- 
tions and from the law. I must live alone so long as I 
can live. When I can no longer live freely I will die.” 

“ No,” said Israel, and he smiled at the girl, “ do not 
die. When you can no longer live freely come back to 
me. I laid no yoke upon your neck, Karsavina, did 

I P 

Karsavina blushed ; she gazed raptly at the deep blue 
eyes, the smiling mouth; she wanted to scream out in 
this first moment of realisation that he lied, that he had 
laid upon her neck the heaviest yoke man can lay upon 
woman. But, for the first time in her life, she was 
afraid. She dared not speak frankly to the one man 
who had, for her, stood out from common humanity; 
love, for she knew it as such, made a coward of her. 

“ No,” she lied at last, “ you were good to me, Israel. 
You saved my life, no great thing, but it may yet be 
precious; you fed me, gave me your roof and your bed. 
I thank you. But now I must go. We cannot live as 


KARSAVINA 


S29 

we do ; we are not like the tame rabbits of the world 
who can live a dozen together in hutches ; we cannot 
afford to be dependent, we must stand on our own feet, 
and we must be alone.” 

“ Yes,” said Israel, “ you are right, I think we must 
be alone, each one in our room, as if on mountain peaks 
at the foot of which unrolls the world. Or as on moun- 
tain peaks so high that there is nothing but clouds about 
us, for then we can see and we can temper our souls. I 
wish you luck, Karsavina, be free. But of course we 
shall meet again.” 

“ Yes, yes,” said the girl eagerly, “ often.” And in 
her excitement she laid her hand upon his arm. 

Israel smiled, took and held her hand; her close- 
pressed fingers seemed to thrill under his touch, the skin 
to divide up into little zones of heat and cold whose 
position continually changed, so that the whole of her 
hand, though in the clasp "of his, was in a state of 
internal movement. At that moment her activity ceased. 
She was no longer aggressive; she no longer wanted to 
woo him; she was captured and dominated, ready to do 
his bidding, to receive his kisses or to accept without a 
word dismissal from his life. But he released her hand, 
and at once the charm was broken. The physical bond 
had been complete for an instant of time, but there had 
been no mental bond; she yearned for him, he did not 
yearn for her, she alone was a captive. So long as he 
touched her she was his slave; when he stood before her, 
genial, friendly, almost brotherly, he was a stranger, 
unexplored land. Her old aggressiveness flew back to 
her, filled fumous every cavern of her brain. 

‘‘ Come,” said Kalisch, wholly unconscious of her ex- 
citement, “ let us cross the river and go into that park ; 
I do not know its name, but I see fine trees.” 


230 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


They crossed the bridge, entered Battersea Park. 
The plains were dry and charred by the heat ; every 
blade of grass was brownish and curled up, but the 
shrubs were heavy with foliage, the trees laden and 
lowering with leaf. They stopped in front of a flower- 
bed. The fine black earth had clotted into sharp masses, 
as if the frost and not the sun had come. It held many 
lines of flowers, first faint rose peonies, then peonies 
blushing, then again red peonies, and behind them mas- 
sive, apoplectic peonies, some of which were so red and 
so violent as to seem almost black ; behind these stood a 
low hedge of larkspur, whose tender, apologetic blossoms 
appeared by contrast pale, though some, vivid as the 
sky above them, stood out from their fellows, that were 
iridescent and slaty as a pigeon’s breast. They stood 
very long in front of the great bed with three little chil- 
dren who rested on their iron hoops and divided their 
round-eyed stares between the passionate flower-bed and 
the two strangers. Twice, out of sheer lack of employ- 
ment, they asked Israel to tell them the right time. 

“ Beautiful,” said Karsavina at last. She drew in 
her breath, looked at Kalisch, as if this orgiastic colour 
excited and yet soothed her. “ I feel,” she said, “ some- 
thing I cannot explain. I feel something in my throat. 
It is not controllable, you know, for I feel it when I hear 
that a man has splendidly died and when I hear the bag- 
pipes, though I hate soldiers.” 

“What are the bagpipes?” asked Israel. 

“You have never heard the bagpipes! Oh, Israel 
. . . the bagpipes, that the Scotch soldiers play . . . 
they are like that bed. They are screaming and they 
are sorrowful ; there is a wail in their merriment and 
cruelty in their triumph. They rise and they fall like 
a weight swung in the air at the end of a string. They 


KARSAVINA 


^31 


are like the red blood of those peonies and like the 
melancholy of those blue flowers . . . I do not know 
their name.” 

“ Ah,” said Israel, “ that must be beautiful. As you 
describe them, Karsavina, they must be like the human 
voice, or rather no, the human voice lies, like the human 
life that flows under the words. That bed too is like 
the true life that wants to express itself. But it does, 
fortunate flower-bed ! while we lie cramped and fearful.” 

All that afternoon those two stayed in Battersea 
Park, wandered across the sun-scorched plains and along 
the shady paths. So heavy was the heat that hardly 
any but they walked ; everywhere round them they could 
see families in exhausted heaps in the shade of shrubs, 
couples quiescent and absorbed, content to lie close, hand 
in hand, but too listless to draw closer. The heat pene- 
trated Israel and Karsavina, made them silent and lan- 
guid, but wonderfully glad, for this was their sky, this 
purple, unsoiled vault, and not the slaty sheet which 
shuts off the London sun. So glad did it make the girl, 
so much did it soothe her jarred nerves, that she con- 
tinued to thrust back the distress she felt every time she 
reflected that she would no longer hear Israel breathing 
in the night, that she would no longer wash, dress almost 
under his eyes, in delicious anxiety lest he should by a 
chance movement detect her in an unbecoming attitude. 
She drifted in the hot air very much as a feather, fallen 
from the wing of a bird, which was now and very slowly 
dropping before her eyes. 

The day ended. They ate together, fried fish this 
time and potatoes so greasy that they glistened under 
the dull brown of the oil-soaked salt; together they 
drank in a garish, dirty public-house a little English 
beer. It was still hot, but the night seemed cold after 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


the splendid day. They stood irresolute on Karsavina’s 
doorstep, for there was an apparent finality in the part- 
ing. “ To go,” thought Karsavina, quoting to herself 
from a Frenchman, “ is to die a little.” Miserably she 
cut the parting short. 

“ Good-night, Israel,” she said, holding out her hand. 

He held it a second, pressed it. “ Good-night,” he 
said, as he turned away. 


Ill 

The club was very interested in the separation, which 
it openly discussed when neither Karsavina nor Kalisch 
was in the room. The quality of those two awed every- 
body a little, except Ekaterina, who felt them to be 
sister-souls. Thus the subject was avoided in their 
presence, though Warsch was often plagued with jokes 
about Lina Mossel, while Leitmeritz and Sonia fre- 
quently indulged in their one-sided quarrels, all of which 
ended in the man’s collapse in presence of the woman’s 
placidity. The affairs of Israel and Karsavina were set 
upon a pedestal, but comment did not disarm. 

“ It is as well,” said Jonas; “ after all, though people 
are free to do what they like, it might have ended un- 
happily.” 

“ It might have been unhappy, never mind the end,” 
snarled Leitmeritz. Look at me, tied to that woman. 
Tac, what a life. She sits there, look at her, doing 
nothing but stopping the way. Sonia ! Sonia ! haven’t 
you got anything to do.” 

“ No, Zadoc, unless you want me to do something 
for you.” 


KARSAVINA 


233 


“ Psha Kreff, listen to her. Those soft answers of 
women are like the paws of a tiger. That woman has 
swaddled me in comfort, made a habit of herself. I hate 
her. Sonia, do you hear? I hate the sight of you.” 

“ How Zadoc does talk,” said Sonia cowishly to 
Ekaterina, “ one can see he needs a woman to care for 
him.” 

Ekaterina began to laugh. ‘‘ Ah, you’re the funniest 
lovers I ever knew. You’re like the cat and the dog 
who bite and scratch, and you couldn’t do without each 
other.” 

“ I could. I’ll get rid of her yet.” 

“ Zadoc,” said Sonia, “ give me twopence. I must 
get your beer before the pub closes.” 

The discussion was resumed while Sonia went for the 
beer. Ekaterina frankly expressed her disappointment. 
She had hoped that the companionship would be main- 
tained, that the normal man would appear in the strange 
creature who, without commanding, by the mere fact of 
his being, commanded them all. 

“ She had come to him,” she said, “ so simply, so 
naturally, just as if they had called to each other across 
space and had been fortunately answered. Ah, those 
two should not have parted, if they could be so happy as 
to love each other. But they don’t.” 

“ The woman loves.” 

“ What? ” Ekaterina turned suddenly towards Pere- 
kop, for it was the dreamy mujik who had spoken. He 
sat on the floor, his straight hair tumbled over his long 
black eyes, a dirty scrap of paper on his knee, on which 
he traced in capitals (for he had but recently learned 
to write) the names of his favourites. “ What do you 
mean, you fool?” 

‘‘ I beg your pardon, harinya/’ said Perekop humbly. 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


S34< 

“ Do not call me harlnya^ I am your comrade.” Then 
Ekaterina realised that she had called him “ fool,” as 
ancestresses of hers must have called many a serf before 
Alexander freed them; it annoyed her, and it annoyed 
her too that the mujik, equally influenced by his pre- 
natal past, should have humbly accepted the insult, 
called her harlnya, “ Forgive me, Peter Sidorovitch,” 
she said gently, “ but why do you say the woman 
loves ? ” 

‘‘ She dares not look at his eyes. She looks at his 
teeth.” 

“ Looks at his teeth.? ” 

“ When he smiles. She thinks him beautiful. Wo- 
men think men beautiful when they love them, but they 
dare not look at their eyes.” 

There was a moment’s silence. Then Schund, who 
was leaning on the table, hunched up, eyes fixed on 
Ekaterina, began to laugh, grossly, heavily, in great 
gurgles. 

Ho-ho-ho, ho-ho-ho,” roared the dullard, ho-ho-ho, 
ho-ho-ho.” 

Then Warsch laughed, boisterously too, and Sonia, 
and Jonas smiled, even Leitmeritz grinned, showing 
every tooth under the circumflex wrinkles. Ekaterina 
alone was serious, and Lydotchka, who kept her eyes 
fixed on her while she waited for her cue, also showed no 
sign of amusement. 

‘‘ It may be,” said Ekaterina. “ Poor Karsavina, 
she must suffer ; to love such a man is like loving Apollo. 
If he has not descended from his pedestal he will not 
descend.” 

‘‘ I suppose he has not descended,” said Jonas. 

What a pity it would be if he had.” 

“ Why a pity .? ” asked Ekaterina, her sympathy 


KARSAVINA 


^35 


turned to anger. “ You are not going to preach mar- 
riage, are you, comrade Galgenstein? ” 

“ No, no, of course not. Still marriage can be fine, 
and people like Israel are too fine for the temporary.” 

Lydotchka threw the young man a quick glance; she 
wondered whether those serious dark eyes shaded by the 
heavy brow would ever rest upon her long enough to 
understand. But Jonas was absorbed by his idea. He 
could not, dared not say that he at heart disliked free 
alliance, that he recognised marriage as futile, the laws 
that enforced it as tyrannous, but that some invisible 
force within him held him back from freedom. For too 
many generations had his people married and lived 
straitly, avoiding the Canaanite, the Hittite and the 
Jebusite, later the conquering Gentile ; he held marriage 
to be a shackle, the ceremony indecent, the legal sanc- 
tions atrocious, but he shrank from the logical extreme 
of free union. He had even dallied with Meredith’s 
“ conjugal lease,” because it represented a compromise 
between the warring elements in his nature. Now, how- 
ever, and he dared not confess it, he was too deeply in 
love with lily-white Ethel, the piano-teacher, to think of 
any anti-social relation without disgust. 

“ I think,” he said, “ that we cannot generalise about 
marriage, union, call it what you like. There are some 
who are weak and must be held because they do not 
know what they want; there are some who must do as 
others do or be unhappy; there are some who are fit 
for freedom because they will not misuse it; and there 
are some who must live like saints so that the beauty 
of their souls may light our way. Israel is one of 
those.” 

There was nobody to gainsay this, for Israel had 
established so lofty a reputation for asceticism that 


236 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


asceticism had gained ground even among these believers 
in free appetites. But Ekaterina protested in general. 

“ I don’t agree. Marriage is absurd. Union must 
be as free as partnership. To hold another against his 
or her will is tyranny. But all this does not matter, 
for they have not allied. Nothing matters except 
Karsavina. Poor Karsavina.” 

At that moment Israel and Karsavina were admitted. 
The girl did not justify the word poor.” She was 
flushed, gay; her flrst week’s wages had mainly been 
spent on a vivid blue blouse, her boots had been mended 
and, as she walked about the room the new steel-shod 
heels clanked in sharp contrast to Sonia’s shuffling 
slippers. By her side Israel smiled benignly, as if 
pleased by the sight of her little vanity ; he kept near 
her out of habit. And it was true that, when he smiled, 
she looked at his beautiful teeth, avoided his eyes. 

Karsavina was gay because it had become an adven- 
ture to meet Israel. To be with him was no longer pain- 
fully tense, nor did the companionship threaten the 
greater tenseness of the night; he had become the one 
joyful fact of the day between the heat of the sweat- 
shop, the smell of its frowsy stufPs, and the cubicle in the 
lodging-house in Chitty Street where she slept. With 
him she was now irresponsible, inclined to sing, ready 
for horseplay. Her youth was bubbling within her, 
while her womanhood seemed to sleep. He haunted her 
still, and she loved him none the less, but his presence 
was made more dramatic by his absence ; he was a pleas- 
ure instead of a high-hung prize. 

All that evening Karsavina made the club laugh. 
She sang The Red Sarafan as sung by the English, and 
a version of Sail Away. She made Israel play on the 
violin, not the sorrowful airs he loved, but snatches of 


KARSAVINA 




I Wouldn't Leave My Little Wooden Hut for You and 
My Irish M oily ^ picked up from the streets. The others 
were infected by her gaiety. AVarsch went out to buy 
beer and boiled sausages from the char cut erie opposite. 
All clustered round the deal table, spilling beer and 
gravy upon the Freedoms and pamphlets that littered it. 
They sang La Carmagnole to a music-hall tunc, with a 
riotous sense of desecration. Then Karsavina seized a 
sausage from the dish, threw it at Warsch. 

“ Catch,” she cried, as she bent her head back and 
laughed. 

The sausage was thrown from hand to hand across 
the table to Israel, who gravely returned the hot, sticky 
thing to Ekaterina. Ekaterina, with a gesture of dis- 
gust, threw it full at Leitmeritz, at once wiping her 
beautiful hands. It passed to Jonas, to Lydotchka, to 
Perekop, who could be heard murmuring, “ Flying 
Peggy, flying piggy . . . can it be . . . flying 
piggy . . . Flying Peggy;” then the mujik flung it 
at Schund. The creature had drunk too much beer, was 
unprepared; the sausage struck him full in the face, 
broke open, covered him from nose to hair with its red 
contents. 

There were shouts of delight as Schund blinked from 
under his meat-covered eyebrows. Israel smiled. 

“Youth and laughter,” he murmured, “if only we 
could laugh enough. ...” 


CHAPTER III 


UNION BY DIVISION 

I 

Israel and Karsavina missed each other. A fortnight 
of close companionship, begun in such singular wise, had 
meant more to them than they knew. Karsavina did not 
condescend to be glad because Israel had saved her life ; 
she rather resented his intervention, though she was not 
sorry to be alive, for he had used force, he had thwarted 
her in the exercise of a natural right. She was not 
grateful, except in moods such as the one which made 
her thank him when he fed and housed her and respected 
her helplessness. But she was glad of him, glad because 
he had brought into her life the delicious and tormenting 
element of love. She had, as he himself had, loved be- 
fore, but she had never been in love. Often she had 
thought she was ; she had even tried to suggest to herself 
a love she did not feel, but she had failed. She had in 
vain tested men, found them selfish and stupid or clever 
and vain ; she had above all found them brutal ; she had 
almost decided that true humanity was woman, and that 
man was but an animal. But with Israel a new vision 
seemed to dawn, a vision of sentiment almost intolerably 
aloof ; she saw him as so fine, so unstirred by common 
passions and so master of himself that she tended to 
revere him as much as she loved him. He was the 
essence of love rather than a lover, and yet she longed 
to make him descend from his misty heights, descend into 
her respectful arms. 

While the memory of him was all day with Karsavina, 

238 


KARSAVINA 


while she had to practise mental discipline to detach her 
thoughts from him as she wearily stitched fustian coats, 
the memory of her was not so constantly with Israel. 
His work was more intricate than it had been ; he could 
now cut a skin, separate it in two to make boas, repair 
holes by transferring portions of fur ; it still fell to him 
to do the minor work, to tack the skins, to stretch them 
on the form, but often he had to attend to what he was 
doing and, characteristically enough, he gave his atten- 
tion to the work. At times only did he think of Karsa- 
vina, imagine in great detail the workshop in which she 
must be, but these were only pictures projected on a 
mental screen, designed to amuse rather than move him. 
It was rather in the morning and in the evening he 
missed her. Without knowing it, he had been lonely and 
had prized the companionship of the girl, liked the 
pleasant commonplaces of the elementary breakfast; 
even while she washed and dressed behind his back he had 
liked to hear her move about. It gave him relief from 
his sense of isolation, an isolation which he courted and 
loved but sometimes found wearisome. To meet her at 
the club was well enough, but he lacked there the true 
sense of companionship. They were not together there 
because too few or too many people were about them: 
within a fortnight Karsavina had become a habit, and 
he gave her this discomfort of his in exchange for her 
hungry passion ; it was all he had to give. 

But the desire for her companionship had to be satis- 
fied. Some evenings they walked together round the 
dreary Outer Circle of barricaded Regent’s Park, but 
not often, for Israel thought he wanted to sit in his room 
and read ; in reality a sense of duty drew him there, told 
him that it was not good for him to wander aimlessly 
with this girl when he should be fortifying his mind. 


MO 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


This was not intellectual priggishness, it was a genuine 
desire to know more, to think more. He wanted to read 
Rousseau, and he felt he ought to read Rousseau. It 
was a complex sentiment, one he could not explain, but 
Karsavina understood it, told him bluntly that she did 
not want to detain him. 

“ You need not come out with me,” she said, as he 
left the Club at ten o^clock ; “ I know what you want to 
do. You want to go home and read. Well, go.” 

‘‘ I was going,” said Israel. 

“ You were, but you felt guilty. It u no reason 
because you saved my life that you should take charge 
of it . . . like the Chinese.” Karsavina laughed, and 
there was a high, rather hysterical note in the laugh. 

‘‘ I would not,” said Kalisch ; “ your life is your own. 
I do not want to dominate it.” 

“ Yes, yes, I know,” replied Karsavina. She was 
acid. She hated this thrall that held her, because it was 
a thrall, but it exasperated her to think that Israel did 
not want to enthrall her further. “ I know,” she added 
bitterly, ‘‘ you say to individuals what you say to 
society ; when you talk to me it is as if you quoted 
Diderot and said: Nature has made neither masters nor 
servants; I will not give nor will I receive laws.” 

“Well, do you not also think that right.?” Israel 
looked at her so innocently, with an air of such intel- 
lectual interest, that she laughed again, then sighed as 
if sorry for this big, thoughtful child. 

Israel unconsciously achieved a compromise, for he 
invited Karsavina to accompany him home, telling her 
that she might read there if she liked. She seized the 
opportunity greedily, pulled herself into believing that 
she was not thus feeding the flame of her passion, for 
what could a man be to her who did not speak to her for 


KARSAVINA 


241 


two hours at a time, but sat at the table, his face close 
to his book, while she lay on the bed trying too to read 
in the candlelight? She knew, however, that she lied to 
herself and was a coward, that her attention perpetu- 
ally wandered, though she was interested ; she could not 
concentrate on Reclus or even on the current Justice 
while Israel sat at the table. Often she put down her 
book and openly watched him, bitterly certain that he 
would not look up. She could see his pale face in the 
light, his red lips part between the copper moustache 
and beard, and slowly move as he read. She gazed, fas- 
cinated, at the strong, white hands that grasped the 
heavy hair, and she could not drive away pictures of 
those hands holding her unresisting face while the blue 
eyes looked into hers, saw nothing but her. 

Hers was a mixed passion, but it had heights she had 
reached with no man other than this one. It was re- 
spectful and appealing, though there ran through it a 
fierceness of reluctance; she could have held herself 
cheap to cheaper men, but in the presence of this rarity 
she found that her standards rose, that a new pride was 
born in her. So she suffered and rejoiced together. 
Sometimes Israel tortured her, for he was reading the 
poets, indiscriminately, as there was nobody to guide 
him. He read them aloud, passing frorri the inflated 
proprieties of Tennyson to the voluptuous melodies of 
Swinburne, then suddenly to Shelley, ethereal but not 
unvirile, or to Whitman. Whitman especially he read 
to her, perhaps because the other books were borrowed 
from the free library, while his Leaves of Grass, brought 
from America, was his own. For an hour at a time he 
would read Whitman, his deep voice rising and falling, 
espousing the elusive rhythm of the verse; he had dis- 
covered the art of reading Whitman, an art almost 


242 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


physical, which demanded that all of him should sway 
with its harsh and tempestuous sonorities. More than 
any he loved the revolutionary, hallucinated verse. One 
evening he read three times in succession the invocation 
to France — 

O Liberty ! O mate for me ! 

Here too the blaze, the grape-shot and the axe, in reserve, 
to fetch them out in case of need. 

Here too, though long represt, can never be destroy’d, 
Here too could rise at last murdering and ecstatic. 

Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance.” 

His voice grew hoarse as he read. His soul was drunk 
with the promise. But he spoke softly, religiously 
almost, the pathetic humility of the Ethiopian woman 
who watched Sherman’s regiments march past — 

” Me master, years a hundred since from my parents sun- 
der’d, 

A little child, they caught me as the savage beast is 
caught. 

Then hither me across the sea the cruel slaver brought.” 

On those nights Karsavina would lie on the bed, her chin 
resting upon her hands, her eyes fixed on Israel, shining 
with his passion for revenge and happiness, or dreamy 
with his sorrow. The poems were dramatic to her as 
would have been a poor play in which figured a great 
actor whose every movement she observed ; the verses, 
their rhythm or their melody, their grace and their 
enthusiasm, all these things were but the setting in 
which Israel chose to live. She was too much woman to 
see aught but the man ; she saw him in the golden rai- 
ment of the beauty he created, she did not see the 


KARSAVINA 


raiment itself. She did not hear the words of Swin- 
burne or of Whitman, she heard those of Israel. Some- 
times, quite unconsciously, because he was seduced by a 
first line, he would read love poetry. Karsavina never 
interposed, never stopped him or urged him on; Israel 
reading of love or Israel reading of revolution was but 
Israel. Indeed, when she heard him read of love, saw 
him reverent, if detached, the soreness of her heart ceded 
to gentle melancholy sometimes tempered by fugitive 
hope. But, one night, Israel read “ I arise from dreams 
of thee,” slowly, as if he were playing on the violin some 
languorous air. Karsavina did not move. She clenched 
her hands, her nerves twitched and, for the first time, as 
his voice suggested joy in the melody, but not emotion, 
she could not control herself. Tears came into her eyes, 
very slowly, so slowly as to leave them clear. Israel 
read on in an even voice, finished the serenade — 

0 lift me from the grass! 

1 die ! I faint! I fail ! 

Let thy love in kisses rain 
On my lips and eyelids pale. 

My cheek is white and cold, alas ! 

My heart beats loud and fast; — 

Oh! press it close to thine again, 

Where it will break at last.’* 

Israel looked up, saw in the dim light that her cheeks 
were wet. 

‘‘ What, Karsavina,” he said softly, “ you are crying 
— why ? ” 

‘‘ Nothing, nothing,” the girl murmured. Then she 
lied : “ It is the beauty of it, Israel, the beauty, nothing 
but the beauty.” 


244 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


II 

On Sundays the two went together by tacit agree- 
ment ; the day of rest was observed by them in the Con- 
tinental manner, that is, they felt no desire to be gloomy 
and to over-eat, but looked for pleasure. Upon those 
days text-books and pamphlets were laid aside as a mat- 
ter of course; and, in the languid fashion of the East, 
they enjoyed the open air and most moderate exercise. 
During that summer the programme seldom varied. At 
ten o’clock Karsavina would knock at Israel’s door, 
stand framed in it some seconds with conscious vanity, 
for she knew that he critically examined her features 
and her clothes; it hurt her to think that he thus exam- 
ined Ekaterina and Lydotchka, that he sighed because 
Sonia never closed her blouses or combed her hair, but she 
liked her taste to earn its wages ; she was woman and 
wanted his appreciation. She was delightful in those 
heavy September days as she stood, small and slim, in 
the dark, but thin skirt and the white or light-blue 
blouse which moulded her slender lines. She wore short 
sleeves over her dead- white, downy arms, and her long 
neck rose, very high and smooth, from the low-cut 
blouse ; her face seemed serious under its great burden of 
ash-flaxen coils, for she was always a little anxious until 
he smiled. 

“ Good-morning, Karsavina,” he would say in the 
deep voice she loved and likened to a big bell, “ you look 
like a lily in a blue china vase.” 

Or perhaps he would say if all her clothes were black, 
“ Your face lies like a marble mask upon dark cloth.” 
But whatever he said made her blush, for his first words 
always broke the spell of the separation, filled her with 
a sense of renewed intimacy. A tacit convention pre- 


KARSAVINA 


245 


vented them from at once leaving the house, for Karsa- 
vina wanted to compromise with her passion, to have so 
much intimacy as she dared balance against her peace 
of mind; she wanted to be with Israel, but it was not 
enough to be with him under the sky and in the sight of 
others : it was better to be with him within four walls, 
cut off from the world. Everything in the house ap- 
pealed to her, its age and the disgrace of its age as 
shown by its broken banisters, worn sashes and faded 
wallpapers. She liked its tenants : the German clerk 
and his open admiration, for he was always near the door 
when she came, his frock-coat and tall hat splendidly 
brushed, his brown boots shining like washed linoleum; 
the Cazots, husband and wife, neither of whom was ever 
completely clothed on Sunday mornings ; the waiters 
she missed, for the agency was closed on Sundays, but 
she always met some of the big family, often heard the 
old printer at work. And when she sat with Israel she 
could generally hear Schund, stertorously sleeping off 
the beer of the night, and Warsch, whistling as he 
dressed distressingly military German airs. All these 
people were the satellites of Israel, his atmosphere. In 
their midst he constituted her home. 

On one of those Sundays Karsavina sat on the bed 
while Israel gravely talked of abstract beauty. She was 
looking at his teeth, those beautiful white teeth beyond 
which an unrequited lover dares not look, and she slowly 
smoked the Turkish cigarettes, of which Israel laid in a 
stock from the brown girl every Friday night. His 
words, flowing evenly and certain, charmed her, but she 
was young, impatient, and outside the sun was already 
high, was touching the roof of the house opposite, lower- 
ing every minute its zone of light. She interrupted him, 
reminded him that they were to picnic on Hampstead 


S46 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


Heath, herself found the food he had prepared. Good- 
humouredly, as if she legally owned him, like a woman 
who knows a man too well to respect him, she thrust the 
parcels under his arms after inspecting the contents. 

“ That’s good,” she said ; “ bread, butter, it looks 
like butter, and . . . my word . . . galantine . . . 
you’ve been going the whole hog, Israel.” 

Karsavina had to explain “ going the whole hog ” to 
Israel, who thought this to be an illusion to the char- 
cuterie. Then Karsarvina approved the slices of roshif, 
counted the pears. 

“ Four,” she said in warning tones, you hear me, 
Israel ? Four. Two in each pocket, and don’t you lose 
half like last time.” 

I did not lose them,” said Israel with an injured air, 
‘‘ they were in the lining.” 

“ And you lay on them half the day ; you could lie 
on a hot gridiron when you’re talking.” Karsavina 
laughed the beautiful, tender laugh of a woman in love, 
where mockery and affection are closely wed. “ And 
you’ve got nothing to drink ! ” 

Israel handed her a bottle, which ‘‘ The Spaniards ” 
or “ Jack Straw’s Castle ” would fill with beer after one 
o’clock. She carried the bottle openly, while he walked 
up the Broad Walk by her side, quite careless of his 
parcels and bulging pockets. They always went up the 
Broad Walk, so remarkable and so suspicious-looking 
that members of the most select circles of Primrose Hill 
and Chalk Farm stopped to gaze at them, while the 
park-keepers watched for an opportunity to turn them 
out. But the odd couple never troubled about anybody : 
Karsavina was used to the attention she aroused, while 
Israel, careless of those around him, seldom realised that 
he was an object of interest. They walked up to the 


KARSAVINA 


m 

place near the bandstand where, on fine Sunday morn- 
ings, there are meetings of reformers and reactionaries. 
They always gave every speaker a few minutes, but 
never took part in the debate; they listened even to the 
occasional hymns. 

“ A pity,” said Israel on this as on other occasions, 
“ that souls should have no ears.” 

The inimical speakers were then heard, for all w'ere 
inimical. Once only had Israel intervened against a 
Liberal, and with such splendid effects that he had been 
cheered by an Imperialist and Tariff Reform group. 
This had disgusted him, for he felt no desire to have a 
platform of his own and to preach Anarchism to the 
mob. 

« It is no use,” he said to Karsavina, “ there is 
nothing for us to do in the open until the people are 
hungry. Our immediate duty is to work for our own 
souls and those who come to us freely.” 

Karsavina had disputed this aristocratic view, largely 
because she had in her mind the picture of a kind of 
Rienzi with flaming red hair and beard, who would lead 
the infuriated people to the House of Commons. But 
she saw what he meant, understood his disbelief in 
equality and democracy, his point of view, so highly in- 
dividual that it almost forbade intercourse with the un- 
rcgeneratc. So she stood with him, silent, while a 
Social Democrat quoted Karl Marx and became beatific 
as he described the ideally organised state which would 
arise after the social revolution. 

The tribute to intellect paid, they passed out of the 
park, through Chalk Farm, from whose dinginess they 
escaped as quickly as they could climb endlessly up 
Haverstock Hill, flinging as they went a smile of pity 
at the trim rows of villas and the immaculate Sundayness 


24iS 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


of the innumerable curtains. At last they reached 
“ Jack Straw’s Castle ” a little before one. 

“ Let us wait,” said Israel, with a happy sigh of 
martyrdom, “ let us wait until the law we are supposed 
to make allows us to do what we choose. There is 
nothing so amusing as the Sunday laws.” 

“ And the Sunday conventions, Israel,” said Karsa- 
vina judicially; “butchers don’t close because it is the 
law.” 

“ No. Butchers and others close because it is, as you 
say, the convention, while tobacconists do not close at all 
and liquor-sellers close part of the day. How wonder- 
ful ! They close when half the town thirsts . . . it’s 
the right word . . . to be allowed to get drunk.” 

“ So they should,” said Karsavina fiercely, “ other- 
wise they wouldn’t,” she added. 

The bottle was filled and the couple left behind them 
the man-fouled world. Within half-an-hour’s walk was 
Caen Wood. Far away, beyond the Ponds, lay London ; 
they could see little of it save the fringe of dirty grey 
and yellow houses of Kentish Town. On the west 
Hampstead reared itself high upon its hill, looking in 
the sunlight like an enormous red castle with many 
turrets. They wandered into the sparse wood, found 
at last a place between two elms where there was moss 
against a bank, moss that was dry and springy, grateful 
to the back like a padded chair. They sat down, the 
food beside them, and for a long time said nothing. 

The woman’s mood was not complex; it was her 
familiar mood of worship when in the presence of her 
master. But Israel found his conflicting and troubled. 
He thought of the purple sky, the gorse which still 
flowered on a bush, of the swallows that flew in beautiful 
curves before his eyes ; mixed with this was the sensuous 


KARSAVINA 


^49 

pleasure of his hands moulded in the moss, of the smell 
of earth and dead leaves ; there was more than this, for 
beauty was for him the sister of melancholy, turned his 
mind to those millions beyond the southern skyline who 
were sleeping or drinking away the toil and pain of the 
week; and there was Karsavina: he was aware of her 
as part of the beauty of the day, liked to think of her 
as a wood-nymph whom he would suddenly behold, radi- 
ant and free from the civilised horror of clothes ; he 
would, he thought, see her just so long as one sees a 
fish flash past in a stream. She would smile, laugh low 
perhaps, and be gone. He thrust back the dream, 
stretched his arms, smiled good-humouredly at the girl. 

‘‘ Karsavina,” he said, ‘‘ I am hungry.” 

It was a delightful, merry meal, for it was free from 
rules. 

“ It’s lovely,” said Karsavina as they ate, “ no plates, 
no forks, nothing to wash ; just paper to throw away.” 

‘‘ Or burn,” said Israel, “ so that this place may still 
be beautiful. Yes, it’s good not to be troubled.” Re- 
flectively, he wiped his greasy fingers upon the moss. 
The galantine was delicious, rich, spiced here and there 
with a grain of pepper or a split pistachio, and the 
rosbif! It was better than any one of the four hundred 
thousand joints London w^as consuming, for it was not 
sacramental, nor loaded with potatoes, another vege- 
table, batter pudding, intricate domesticities, and it left 
behind it no ghost of cold meat to haunt the larder for 
three days. Israel and Karsavina sat back against the 
bank, drank in turns at the beer bottle. This part of 
the feast always troubled Karsavina, for it stirred her 
to put her lips where Israel had pressed his, but this 
time she was languid and so happy that she hardly felt 
her customary sorrow ; she asked herself whether she was 


250 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


resigned. But she asked the question lazily, though 
she did ask it as she slowly smoked a cigarette from the 
packet which lay between them. 

“ I wonder what the others are doing,” she said. 

I can tell you if you like. Ekaterina and Ly- 
dotchka are lunching with footmen behind them and be- 
ing called ‘ naughty girls,’ and asked whether they really 
approve of the Suffragettes. Leitmeritz is eating, 
well, perhaps stewed neck of mutton with plenty of 
onions ; he is telling Sonia that it is food fit for a dog, 
but will clean the pot with a piece of bread. Schund, I 
expect, is still asleep, until the time comes for him to 
get up and think of getting drunk.” 

“And Warsch? and Perekop? ” 

“ Perekop is in Whitefield Gardens, sitting on two 
racing papers with another on his knee, while he opens 
an envelope with a tip in it which has cost him sixpence. 
He may think of food later on, or he may not. He is 
quite happy, for there is no racing on Sunday, he can 
be placid to-day.” 

Karsavina laughed. 

“ You know them well, but so do I, Israel. Warsch 
is hanging about in Charlotte Street, waiting for old 
Mossel to be asleep. When Lina comes to the door 
Warsch will stroll along towards her as if he were in 
no hurry, but his heart’ll be beating the band. And 
Galgenstein ... I don’t know.” 

“ Ah, Jonas,” said Kalisch gently, “ he is with his 
people.” He did not describe Jonas as he imagined 
him at that minute ; he could poke fun at the others, for 
they were free, and their foibles might have been criti- 
cised to their faces without offending them, but Jonas was 
playing a part in a weekly tragedy. He was, no doubt, 
alone in the midst of his family, fed and overfed by his 


KARSAVINA 


251 


fond mother, while his father told stories of the fish mer- 
chants he had done brown. Esther must be talking in 
her quick, sandwich fashion of votes for women and the 
cheap furs Jonas should try to buy for her through his 
friend Kalisch. And Sarah must be sunk in dreams of 
doctors. Kalisch sighed as he thought of the dark 
young man with the bulbous forehead, who was per- 
petually torn between his love of the new gospel and the 
power of the old; he was suffering, was Jonas, while his 
soul tried to express itself, suffering as a hyacinth, may 
suffer when it drives its sharp little green head through 
the heavy, wet earth. 

“ Poor Jonas,” said Israel softly. For a very long 
time they did not speak. They smoked cigarette after 
cigarette, watched the smoke slowly disperse in the still 
air. Later, as the afternoon waned, Israel spoke of 
beauty, for beauty was about them in the mauve zones 
of heat round the elms and upon the shrubs ; the gorse 
was spangled yellow with flowers, as with fireflies. 

“ Beauty is easier seen in flowers than in men,” said 
Israel. 

‘‘ That is because they have no souls, rather because 
many men have no souls,” said Karsavina slowly ; “ I 
hardly know what I mean by soul, unless it is the thing 
within us that understands beauty.” 

“ It may be that. For beauty needs to be seen, and 
many are blind to it; it is not easily seen because it is 
inside the thing, not only outside. In a book I have 
not read, by a Roman who died long ago, Marcus Aurel- 
ius, it is said that whatever is beautiful has the source 
of its beauty within itself. That is why it is so difficult 
to see. To see inside.” 

“ I do not understand,” said Karsavina, her eyes fixed 
upon Israel. 


252 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


‘‘ Well, perhaps I go too far. There is external and 
internal beauty, and there is the share of the one who 
sees. That is complex. A thing is beautiful to you 
only if you satisfy three conditions : see the beauty of its 
line and colour, which is external; see the beauty of its 
significance in the world, which is internal; and bring 
into play your own definition of beauty, which is internal 
to you. That is why ages and nations see beauty in 
different things. The things are unchanged, but the 
third element, the ‘ you,’ is not the same. Thus we ad- 
mire the Greek Venus because she is an idealised ‘ we,’ 
so that we can apply our internal definition of beauty, 
but we do not admire the Hottenton Venus because she is 
different and resists our definition.” 

“ But that only applies to people.” 

“ It applies to everything. We see beauty in dia- 
monds; Africa sees it in beads. For us beads are dull. 
And some men see no beauty in an earthworm. I think 
I can ; at least I can if I cast away the rules, look upon 
it as something wonderfully red and mauve, romantic in 
its blind life.” 

They watched the course of the sun, still lying very 
close in the moss. No man passed by them ; in the dis- 
tance they could see groups and couples walk, hear their 
voices and laughter carried on the wind; but nobody 
came to their corner of the wood. They sat there until 
the sun had set in flame behind Hampstead, which now 
stood out dead black against the sky. Over the flame 
was purple which faded into mauve, into the palest blue, 
then into green; the little wind of night came briskly, 
sizzling through the blades of grass. Still they sat, 
lonely in the world and beyond each other’s companion- 
ship, remote from pleasure and pain, as if the heat and 
languor of the day had drugged their bodies and their 


KARSAVINA 


S53 


brains. Israel was speaking again, as if to himself. 

“ And what are we? All of us so different from one 
another, even those of us whom we call Anarchists, con- 
scious creatures? We are none of us of the same stamp, 
even though we want the same things. There is Schund, 
a sot, incapable of an idea, capable only of memorising 
a shibboleth ; Leitmeritz, a phantom of hatred, no more ; 
Warsch, a bourgeois who has lost his way because he is 
poor, a man who will find it again. And there is Ekater- 
ina, a hysterical force of destruction ; Lydotchka, an 
Anarchist because Ekaterina is an Anarchist; there is 
Perekop, who dreams aloud and is with us because he 
was beaten by a harin in green. And Jonas? What is 
Jonas ? A hermit crab who fears to shed his shell. And 
you, Karsavina, I hardly know, perhaps a creature whose 
sensuousness rejoices in contest, who would fight in any 
cause. And I? — a dreamer whom any force may use 
and then cast away. We are all different, we are parts 
of one great mind, we are the facets of the Anarchist 
mind ; each of us is less a type than a part, a mood of a 
new power.” 

He ceased to speak. Karsavina had not listened to 
his musings, for she heard in the darkness of the wood 
the hushed voices of some straying couple. “ Give us a 
chance,” said the girPs voice. Then there was a laugh, 
the sound of a kiss, of a playful smack on a cheek. 
Karsavina looked at Kalisch. He sat, his face dark in 
the waning light, his great eyes dreamy. An intolerable 
impulse made her take his hand, turn her face towards 
him, strive to suggest to him that he loved her. For 
nearly a minute they sat thus linked, Israel almost uncon- 
scious of the contact. Then he looked her in the face, 
smiled. 

‘‘ It is late,” he said, “ we must go.” 


254 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


He did not withdraw his hand, but used it merely to 
draw Karsavina to her feet. 


Ill 

As Israel and Karsavina reached the upper landing of 
the house in Cleveland Street, they found against the 
door a dark, huddled mass. In the dim light reflected 
from the second floor gas-bracket they saw that it was a 
woman, asleep and peacefully snoring. 

“ Tac,” Karsavina whispered, who’s that.? ” 

Israel struck a match. The woman lay across the 
door, her feet tucked in under her skirt, her head pil- 
lowed upon her folded arms ; her face was partly averted 
and completely hidden under her tumbled black hair. 
Israel gently took the woman by the shoulder and drew 
her into a sitting posture. 

‘‘ Sonia ! ” Karsavina cried. 

It was Sonia they saw before them, blinking and yawn- 
ing still, when Israel came back with the candle. She 
seemed stupid, untidier than usual, for her hair was 
down. 

“What’s the matter.?” Karsavina asked. “What 
are you doing here .? ” 

“ I’ve been here since two,” said Sonia, her tongue 
still heavy with sleep. 

“ Since two .? — that’s a long time. But why .? ” 

Sonia seemed more fully awake now. Her first words 
suggested that she had waited for seven hours and could 
very well have waited for seven days. She had sat and 
slept, and if Kalisch had not come, she would again have 
slept and sat, waiting with the simplicity and patience 
of the Slav. 


KARSAVINA 


255 


‘‘ I had nowhere to go. Zadoc turned me out to-day. 
He said the stew was bad and he had finished with me. 
So I had to come somewhere.” 

“ But he did not send you away because the stew was 
bad,” said Israel, smiling. 

“ I don’t know. It was neck of mutton, which he 
likes, and there were onions in it.” 

“ Neck of mutton,” cried Karsavina. She remem- 
bered her conversation with Kalisch and began to laugh. 
Then he too remembered, smiled ; but at once the smile 
faded and he considered Sonia with an air of embarrass- 
ment. She was looking at them vacantly while they 
laughed ; her black eyes peered curiously at them from 
under her heavy, low brows. Quite Eastern in attitude 
she waited patientl}^ for a guiding decision. 

“ Sonia,” said Israel at length, “ Leitmeritz is as free 
as you are ; you must not hold him if he does not want 
you. We are individuals, not couples. If you are sure 
that the link is broken you must make your own life. 
But, meanwhile, there is my room. You can stay here 
to-night.” 

Without giving Sonia time to reply Karsavina began 
to speak quickly, passionately. She was trembling all 
over; she was hot with rage because Israel so calmly 
offered another woman the asylum he had offered her. 
She wanted to scream: ‘‘ No, no, she shall not stay. No 
woman shall stay. You’re mine, Israel Kalisch, or if 
you’re not mine you’ll be nobody’s.” She contained 
herself, was persuasive, hopeful, sentimental, enlisted all 
her wits in the service of her jealousy. 

No,” she panted, ‘‘ it isn’t over. It’s only passing 
anger. He doesn’t mean it now. Let us all go back 
and see him. You’ll see, Sonia, he’ll be sorry when we 
come. He loves you, I know he loves you.” 


256 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


“ Oh, he doesn’t love me. He’s used to me, that’s the 
best he can do. But I’ll go back, I’m used to him, even 
if he does hit me.” 

“ Hit you? ” said Israel, with an air of surprise. 

‘‘ Not often. Just again a little to-day. But I 
don’t mind; he’s my man, is Zadoc. I’ll go back if 
you’ll come.” 

They went to Little Goodge Street without speaking 
on the way, for Sonia was heavily contented with her 
new chanqe, Israel sorrowful in presence of the gross- 
ness, and Karsavina, still afire, intent upon the argu- 
ments she would use. The door of the Club was half 
opened by Lcitmeritz himself, who looked out, his face 
more distorted than usual by the wrinkles. 

“ Oh,” he said, “ glad to see you. Come in. What’s 
that? Sonia? Get out. I’ve done with you.” 

“ Let her come in, Leitmeritz,” said the crafty Karsa- 
vina, “ she’s not coming to see you ; she’s coming into 
the Club.” 

“ Club? That’s not bad, tac. Well, let her come 
in. She can’t stay, though.” 

They sat around the deal table, well aware that a 
conference was about to begin. 

‘‘ Nobody come in? ” Karsavina asked. 

“ No. Don’t want anybody.” 

“ I thought you said you were glad to see us.” 

“ I’m not.” 

“ Come,” said Israel, “ you are. And you’re glad to 
see Sonia.” 

“ I’m not.” 

“ Had your supper, Zadoc? ” Sonia asked placidly. 

“ Yes, and a better one than you can cook. Had It 
at Folten’s. Anchovies, Wiener Schnitzel, Gurken. 
And a glass of vodka,'^ 


KARSAVINA 


S57 


“ Schnitzel sevenpcnce, Gurken a penny, anchovies 
twopence, vodka twopence. That’s a shilling, Zadoc, 
seven shillings a week. I can beat that.” 

“ You can’t beat it.” 

‘‘ D’you remember that larded hare.” 

Yes.” Leitmeritz’s frown relaxed. 

“ That was a fine beast. Two shillings, Zadoc, 
and we ate it four nights. That was a good beast, 
eh.?” 

“ Yes, that was a good beast. And then we went to 
the peep-show.” 

Sonia laughed. “ That was a silly peep-show, 
Zadoc.” 

“You bet it was. Not like home, eh.? Do you re- 
member the peep-show at Riga? The sailor’s wed- 
ding.? ” 

“ Ah, ah, the sailor’s wedding ! ” Sonia laughed with 
Leitmeritz at their common memory. The two talked 
to each other only, of Poland, in little pictures of snowy 
lanes and wooden houses, of great brick stoves and 
rooms full of log-smoke. Karsavina threw Israel a 
laughing glance of triumph. She got up. 

“ Well,” she said, “ we must go, we only looked in. 
Come, Israel.” 

“ Here, I say ... I won’t have this ...” 

“ Good-night, Leitmeritz.” Still laughing, Karsa- 
vina fled down the stairs, followed by Israel. They 
stood awhile at the bottom of the stairs, waiting to see 
whether Sonia was to be hurled after them. But they 
heard nothing, not even voices. Karsavina smiled at 
Israel, took his arm as they went out. He smiled at 
her too, glad to think that the quarrel was mended, and 
glad because it was Karsavina mended it. “ Good 
girl,” he thought. But Karsavina could have sung and 


258 UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 

(danced as she went home, because Israel alone was Israel 
hers. 

Leitmeritz was meanwhile walking up and down nerv- 
ously, while Sonia, calmly settling in her favourite 
basket-chair, took up the sock she had been knitting 
before her eviction. From time to time she threw him 
a half-appealing, half-humorous look, for she was not 
sure that the battle was won. Leitmeritz continued to 
walk up and down, ravelling his long, greasy hair with 
his yellow hands. He kept his eyes away from hers, as 
if he shrank from the conflict a glance might hurry on. 
He took up a book, stood near the candle, and began to 
read with apparent intentness. 

“ Zadoc,” said Sonia suddenly after two minutes of 
silence. 

“ Eh ! ” Leitmeritz started as if he had really been 
reading. 

“Is that book interesting?” 

“ Yes. More interesting than you.” 

“ Oh? Even upside down? ” - 

Leitmeritz realised that he was caught and became ‘ 
half angry, half embarrassed. 

“What’s that to do with you? If you come back 
here can’t you even leave me in peace? What a woman, 
tac! ” 

“ I will leave you in peace, Zadoc, if you like. Do 
you remember when I first came to you in Bethnal 
Green? There’s the iron trunk.” 

“ Hum ! ” Leitmeritz was tempted to say : “ Pack it 
and go,” but faint sentimentality crept over him. He 
had been pleased, in' a way, when Sonia came with the 
iron trunk. And they had worried along somehow. 
He threw a sidelong glance at the familiar face; it was 
not uncomely to him, this dark, heavy-browed counte- 


KARSAVINA ^59 

nance, and it smiled at him with an air of affection that 
he resented and liked. 

“ Hum ! ” he repeated. “ Well, you can stay. Curse 
you.” 

Sonia put down the sock, got up and, deliberately 
putting her arms round his neck, kissed him. He did 
not return the caress, but did not move away. These 
two, fettered by habit and bound very close by their 
past community of life, brutal and brutalised though 
they were, felt for a moment the charm of their old as- 
sociation. They had been happy and hungry, they 
had fought and made peace, and they had done all 
those things so often, always together and with a 
sense of mutual dependence, that an insensible link 
had formed, made of their nominally free union a union 
sanctified by the custom of time. At last Leitmeritz 
drew away. 

“ Here,” he said gruffly, as he handed her twopence. 
“ We’ll have a drink on it ; go and get some beer. And 
be quick, or I’ll give you the chuck.” 

“ How you do talk, Zadoc,” said Sonia securely. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE CAUSE AND THE MARTYE 

I 

The strike broke out suddenly. There had been no 
whisper of discontent, either at Kohn’s or at any shop 
of which his men knew. Apparently the trouble had 
begun at Echtel’s, who employed a hundred and forty 
hands, many of whom were far from ill paid. But there 
had been special grievances at Echtel’s : in the course of 
twelve months a dozen skilled hands had been replaced 
by learners ; one foreman had been dismissed and his men 
distributed among the others ; there had been several 
prosecutions on the score of cabbage.” Echtel’s men 
read in all these signs that they were to be squeezed; 
they had no organisation, no plans, and suddenly they 
struck, refrained even from giving notice. The entire 
staff walked out on the Monday morning, as if fear were 
their sole inspiration and leader. Later in the day only 
did they put forward a list of demands. 

‘‘ Echtel’s have struck,” said Warsch as he sewed. 
The news had come, without messengers or newspapers 
in the shape of a rumour carried by a carter who had 
delivered a bale of skunk pelts. “ It’s about time we 
did strike.” 

“ Yes,” said Leitmeritz greedily, ‘‘ we’ll strike.” 

“ Strike,” said Perekop. Then he put down the 
stretcher, seemed lost in thought. His lips began to 
move, to frame again and again the name of the filly 
“ Vesta.” 

“ Yes,” said Kalisch, as if to himself, we must strike 
if our brothers strike.” 


260 


KARSAVINA 


S61 


They could hardly discuss the position until they 
knew the demands, but already the fierce little group 
had made up its mind; there was a fever in its blood. 
To strike meant to act. It was Kohn himself brought 
the details. They heard him on the landing, muttering 
in guttural English and German with his wife, who per- 
petually forgot the general question in her concern for 
her husband’s workshop. “ Aber, hier, hier hahen sie 
nichts gesagt'^ she repeated a dozen times, until her 
husband turned his back on her and entered the work- 
shop. Kohn confronted his men, his hands buried in 
his trousers pockets, his paunch thrown out; his olive 
face shone with excitement and his black eyes were ag- 
gressive, though they tried to appear friendly. 

“ You know,” he said defiantly. “ Echtel’s have 
struck.” 

‘‘Yes,” said Leitmeritz. “We, too, from to-night.” 

Kohn paused ; a wave of blood turned his olive cheeks 
brown. 

“ Oh.? ” he said. “ Struck, have you.? ” 

There was no reply. All the men had put down their 
tools, endorsing by their attitude the foreman’s an- 
nouncement. Schund alone went on tipping ermine as 
if he had not heard or understood. 

“ Struck.? You’re out for fifty-four hours and thirty 
bob a week, eh.? S’pose you’re not asking for a limit of 
seven hands and a foreman as there ain’t seven of you? ” 

“ Fifty-four hours and thirty bob a week,” said 
Warsch. He repeated with fine assurance the v/ords he 
had just heard. His heart was beating, he was full of 
glee; this was like the old days in New York. His 
trade-unionist soul was thrilled. 

Kohn looked at the hands with growing fury. His 
dark cheeks swelled; he clenched his fists inside the 


262 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


tight pockets, so that the knuckles showed under the 
cloth. But he contained himself. 

“You strike to-night? Good. I lock you out now. 
Go at once or I send for the coppers.” 

With a simultaneous movement the four men threw 
down stretchers, knives and needles, put on their coats, 
left the workshop. Schund remained in front of the 
ermine pelt, methodically tipping it with black. Kohn 
went up to him, seized him by the shoulder. 

“ You,” he said angrily. “ You’re striking with the 
other scJiweineJiunde? ” 

“ Yes,” said Schund after a long pause. “ I strike 
to-night. To-night I strike. I strike to-night, I do.” 

“ Well, you go now, with the others.” 

Kohn was so angry that he was not afraid of the 
heavy brute. Schund threw him an inexpressive look 
from his light eyes and left the workshop, twisting his 
yellow moustache almost jauntily. 


II 

It was an absurd, fierce little strike. Beyond the 
date of its proclamation, October, it had nothing in its 
favour, but it could not win on the sole asset of the 
heavy winter orders the masters had to execute. There 
was a small union, which went out the same day as 
Echtel’s, but nine-tenths of the furriers were non-union- 
ists ; there was hardly any money for the strike pay of 
the union men ; there was nothing for the non-unionists. 
The furriers’ hands responded well enough, one quarter 
only remaining at work, for the demands seemed worth 
fighting for. Their attainment would have meant for 
the majority six hours less work and five shillings more 


KARSAVINA 


263 


pay a week; thus, by the third day, three out of four 
shops had been abandoned or had locked out their men. 
But the lack of a strong union made itself felt; there 
was no money and there were no leaders. The hands 
gravitated naturally towards the East End, where they 
tended to mob EchtePs and Farishky’s shops until dis' 
persed by the police. A meeting was held in Victoria 
Park. It was a wretched affair attended by a leader^ 
less five or six hundred furriers, almost all Germans, 
Russians and Poles, and a bare five hundred onlookers. 
Kohn’s men were all present. Keeping together, they 
entered the park, but Warsch felt his heart sink as he 
saw the assembly ; this was not the fierce, seething 
crowd of New York; it was a heterogeneous mass of 
downtrodden beasts who still felt heavy upon them the 
heel of the German or Russian government. 

The five stood together in front of a dray, from which 
a smooth, black-coated German trade-union official was 
speaking. They could hardly understand him. He 
spcke slowly, gutturally. At times he stopped to rub 
his hands on his handkercliicf, for fine rain was falling, 
very slowly, wrapping the crowd, the dim park and the 
leaden lake in a grey haze. 

“. . . Naturally the time has come to rebel against 
sweating . . . the wages are too low naturally . . . 
and, naturally, we want a nine-hour day. I don’t say 
that we will not confer with the masters, naturally 
. . . naturally ...” 

The speaker went on floundering, using the word 
“ naturally ” in every sentence. He was a dark, fat 
Jew with spectacles. His face was wet and comically 
tragic. And the five, lost among their fellows, found 
despair creeping into them. The rain soaked their 
collars, their feet felt sodden in their boots. 


264 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


‘‘We are done for,” said Warsch to Kalisch. 

Kalisch looked at the ineffectual speaker, at the 
straggling, dumb crowd that pulled its collars up, 
obviously thought more of the rain than of the indus- 
trial contest. 

“ I fear you are right,” he said. 

Perekop was obviously not listening, while Schund 
glared at the speaker as if he were already drunk; he 
probably was. Leitmeritz could be heard muttering 
curses. 

“ Look here, Israel,” said Warsch desperately, “ get 
up and speak to them.” Kalisch hesitated, then shook 
his head. 

“No, it is no use. They are beaten. They think 
they want certain things, but in reality they do not 
know what they want; if they do not know that, their 
soul is empty and they cannot bear such emptiness for 
a week. You can starve a body for a week, Warsch, 
not a soul.” 

Still the rain fell, slow and grey, almost blotting out 
the bandstand and the gymnasium. Over their heads 
was the watery, yellow sky, relentlessly closed to the 
sun. The trade-unionist was still struggling on with 
his vain task, shouting, waving his hands, for his audi- 
ence had been thinning for an hour. Every minute 
now half-a-dozen men edged away towards the fringe 
of the crowd, turned into shades as they walked away 
quickly through the drizzle. 

. . We are winning, naturally,” he blustered, 
“ three-quarters of the shops are out . . . natur- 
ally we must not be afraid of blacklegs, naturally 
...” He went on interminably, but War sell turned 
away. 

“ Come, Israel,” he said, “ it’s all over : he said 


KARSAVINA ^65 

‘ blacklegs ’ and there was not a cry. When that word 
does not yield a roar it’s all over.” 

Kalisch nodded; together they led the other three 
away. A little later they sat down at a pull-up for 
carmen in front of hot coffee and bread and margarine, 
but not a word was spoken during the meal, for they 
were burying the strike. 

The Victoria Park meeting seemed to precipitate the 
collapse. The same evening Farishky filled every 
vacant post, taking the opportunity of eliminating the 
better-paid men. The Little Goodge Street Club was 
at first fiercely excited, clamoured for popular leader- 
ship, but soon its anger fell. 

“ What is the good? ” asked Warsch. “We have no 
money, perhaps each of us enough for a week. And 
then ? ” 

“ Steal,” said Ekaterina intensely. “ Sack the ware- 
houses, the bakeries ; break into the banks.” She 
polished, as she spoke, her lovely finger-nails. 

“ Yes,” repeated Lydotchka, “ break into the banks.” 

Warsch laughed bitterly, and Leitmeritz, who had 
been cursing under his breath in Polish, joined in. 

“ No,” said Warsch, “ a year’s hard labour won’t 
help us. We must wait, organise.” 

The Club was too listless to take up the challenge. 
Often the word “ organise ” had slipped out of Warsch’s 
mouth, had been fiercely taken up, and he had with- 
drawn it, full of shame. 

“ To-morrow morning,” said Kalisch in matter-of- 
fact tones, “ we must go and beg Kohn to take us back.” 

Kohn took them all back, for his shop was so small 
that he had as yet had no applicants. They returned, 
were re-engaged and mulcted of the two days’ pay 
accruing to them from Friday to Monday. Those were 


266 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


his terms. They accepted. The strike had broken 
within six days. 


Ill 

This shameful episode did not ruin the Club. Indeed 
it drew the members of the group together more closely, 
more intimately, than ever before. At first they met 
almost silently, they were sombre, but a new purpose 
began to grow in their midst, a purpose which they 
could not yet analyse or fathom. For several weeks 
after the strike they attended regularly, except Warsch, 
whose affairs with Lina Mossel were becoming compli- 
cated. Old Mossel had declared that his daughter was 
not for a common workman, particularly for one such as 
Warsch, whose views, which he called Socialism, were 
obnoxious to him. He forbade Warsch the shop, sat 
there vigilantly to watch Lina. So Warsch, being 
crossed, fell quite definitely in love, walked up and down 
Charlotte Street to gaze through the window at the 
lovely pink-and-white Lina as she sat behind the counter. 
Sometimes she would look out, smile sadly at him ; some- 
times, too, she contrived to escape, to meet him for five 
minutes in Whitefield Gardens, where they would 
stolidly sit hand in hand, look at each other in tearful 
German fashion; when those meetings took place after 
dark, at the shut gates of the gardens, he could kiss 
her hurriedly, know for the first time of his life the 
quality of kisses. For Warsch had loved but had never 
been a lover ; his simple, sentimental heart was full of 
easy, unsatisfied idealism. 

Without him the Club travelled more quickly towards 
extremism. On one of those evenings when he was 


KARSAVINA ^67; 

present he preached the new form of Anarchism, 
preached it in vain. 

“ The strike,” he said, “ is the weapon of the working 
class; it is invincible if properly used, dangerous to 
those who handle it if they are unskilled. If you 
imagine every trade provided with a union connected 
with the federation, and every man assured of a fort- 
night’s strike pay, you will realise what can be done 
with the general strike. We do not need a fortnight, 
we need two days. But the condition is that every 
union should hold three-quarters of its trade, that every 
may be loyal and be ready to hold his strike pay him- 
self.” 

“ Why hold his own strike pay ? ” asked Leitmeritz. 

“ Because the State would steal the money from the 
banks. Oh, they would call theft an ‘ injunction,’ but 
it would be theft, the old attempt to starve the workers 
into slavery. Every man would have to take his money 
on the day of the strike and preciously preserve it, it 
would be his ticket to the land of liberty.” 

“ That sounds all right, Warsch,” said Israel, “ but 
it is no good. You have illusions about the workers; 
they will never pay in enough, even when they can ; they 
will be jealous of one another; they will spend their 
strike pay on drink and then . . . rat, as they say 
in this country.” 

‘‘But what then.?” asked Warsch, “what is to be 
done ? ” 

Ekaterina leapt to her feet, pointed at Warsch the 
orange stick with which she had been cleaning her 
finger-nails. 

“No strikes ! They take years to build, and they 
break up in a week. There is only one way; you must 
frighten the rich. You must say, ‘ Stand and deliver.’ 


268 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


They always deliver. They are cowards. If Echtel 
and Farishky had been shot instead of parleyed with 
every furrier would have offered the terms you 
wanted.” 

“ Yes, that’s true,” said Leitmeritz, as he drew up 
his upper lip, “ that’s true. It would be amusing, kill- 
ing those men, tac.” 

The discussion went on all the evening, Warsch being 
alone against Leitmeritz, Ekaterina and her echo, 
Lydotchka. Perekop at times approved the terrorist 
section by a few vague words, while Galgenstein, per- 
petually torn between his views, veered from one to the 
other, ended by showing favour to the extremer idea. 
Karsavina, though naturally inclined to support Ekat- 
erina, imitated Israel, who sat almost silent throughout 
the evening, stroking his red beard and smoking ciga- 
rettes which he lit from the stumps. Economic and 
political arguments were used as weapons, discarded for 
passion, for invective ; under pressure of numbers 
Warsch seemd to lose his head, to be driven into ac- 
knowledging that what had been must again be. 

“ Yes,” he said desperately, “ it is true, most strikes 
have failed. They were not big enough, not organised 
enough.” 

“ They were over-organised,” said Ekaterina ; “ they 
had nothing behind them but instructions. They had 
no passion. It is passion that matters, not money.” 

“ You can’t live on passion.” 

‘‘ You can’t win on money.” 

The abysmal difference of view appeared obvious at 
last, On one side the ordered, methodical soul of the 
German Socialist who believed in rules, in discipline, in 
legal revolution ; on the other the unreasonable, revenge- 
ful soul which will gladly perish so that others may live. 


KARSAVINA 


S69 


While Warsch thought of undermining the wall his 
opponents wanted to dash themselves against it, to fall 
back bleeding and to dash at it again, believing that 
weight and self-trust would procure its overthrow. It 
was then Schund, who had not spoken a word since he 
entered the club, broke away from his contemplation of 
Ekaterina. He did not entirely break away from it, 
for as he spoke he kept his heavy gaze upon her grey 
eyes, her purple mouth, her noble black hair. 

“ You’re right,” he said hoarsely to her, “ it’s killing 
we’ve got to do if Anarchy is to come. If Anarchy is 
to come we’ve got to kill. We’ve got to kill; I’ve 
always said it’s kill we’ve got to. I was saying it last 
night to a man, last night I was saying it.” 

“ You should not say those things outside,” said 
Warsch. But Schund took no notice of the interrup- 
tion, babbled on, his light eyes fixed upon the lovely 
Russian girl. Late the night before he had talked to 
a stranger in a public-house; the stranger, he said, 
was drunk, which clearly meant that he was himself 
drunk. And the stranger had approved. 

“ Yes,” cried Schund, “ he said I was right. That’s 
what he said. He said I was right to want to kill the 
bourgeois. He paid for my drink. He paid for my 
drink, he did, he’s a good friend of mine.” 

“ I thought you said he was a stranger,” said Leit- 
meritz, “ you’re drunk.” 

“What’s that to do with you? He was a stranger. 
I said he was a stranger.” 

Schund grew more excited, shouted, repeated his 
story three times, though they were impatient and tried 
to stop him; then he spoke more slowly, less distinctly. 
His voice fell to a growl, to a mumble. He rested his 
head on his big fists. For a while his light eyes fol- 


S70 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


lowed the movements of Ekaterina’s hands. At last 
they closed and he fell asleep. 

Meanwhile Israel had been talking in low tones to 
Karsavina and Jonas of the ultimate voluntary republic. 
But he too had been shaken by the strike, had been 
accepting the idea that fear was the weapon to use. 

‘‘ You see, Jonas,” he said, “ we cannot appeal to 
justice, because the rich do not know justice. But they 
know force; we must appeal to force. Their economic 
force is greater than ours, we cannot beat them, we shall 
starve before they do, but they have no more lives than 
we. I fear Ekaterina is right.” 

Karsavina listened while the blood tingled in her 
veins ; it was splendid to see her hero so calmly girding 
on armour. She loved him judicial, poetic, abstract, 
humorous, aesthetic, but she loved him most of all as he 
promised militancy; it thrilled and terrified her to pic- 
ture him as a new St. George, riding for the sake of the 
world at the dragon who guarded the gold. Jonas was 
deeply shaken, weak with excitement, for his affairs 
grew every day more complicated. He had passed 
three weeks in the summer at Margate in a kosher 
boarding-house, with his mother, with Sarah, arch and 
professional when young Doctor Feger was mentioned, 
and Esther who talked suffrage with the ferocity of a 
convert. His father came down for week-ends, to eat 
enormously, to lay down business versions of economic 
theory. Jonas wandered vainly through Margate, 
Ramsgate, Broadstairs, to escape from the ever-present 
vulgarity of them, the brutish pleasures of Ramsgate 
Sands, the wealthy stupidity of Cliftonville and the 
motorish aloofness of Broadstairs. He followed the 
tramlines through the hateful fields of Thanet on long 
lonely walks, and everywhere he was brought up against 


KARSAVINA 


^71 


the impossibilities of reform; he tried to invigorate his 
Radicalism by telling himself that men, like trees, grew 
slowly, but that they did grow. He tried to think 
that in time the distiller, the pawnbroker and the 
stockjobber would be ashamed of their trades, that the 
people would prefer Morris chintz to stamped velvet, 
that their adjectives would vary, that they would cease 
to be stupid, covetous and snobbish. But the task had 
been too much for him. He returned despairing of the 
world : to see the people at work was pitiful, to see them 
at play was disgusting. He was very near Aristocracy, 
he was equally close to Anarchy. It amazed him to 
discover what few anarchists and aristocrats know, that 
they are blood-brothers. And there had been no intel- 
lectual relief; Esther, on whom he relied a little as an 
advanced woman, was limited by “ votes for women,” 
and panted for the splendours of tea at the Cliftonville. 
On his return his troubles were further increased by the 
discovery of his secret engagement to Ethel, the piano- 
teacher. His father merely said : ‘‘ Marry a Christian 
and you never enter my house again.” There had been 
no dispute, but sullen silence began to reign between 
father and son. 

So Jonas, with his world falling about him, opened 
his blind mouth. He was ready for any gospel, for any 
enthusiasm that could lift him from the ugliness of daily 
life, counteract his father’s intolerance, the tears of 
Ethel, his own weakness of will. The rout of Warsch 
and of peaceful reform left him without a prop. He 
turned towards Israel for guidance and, as his master 
accepted militancy, he could do naught but follow. He 
listened as Israel developed more quietly and more in- 
cisively than Ekaterina the need for direct action, his 
dark eyes fixed upon the ground, his bulbous forehead 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


wrinkled. Little Lydotchka, who had drawn close to 
him and was caressing him with her eyes, boldly laid 
her hand upon his arm. 

“Don’t you think Israel is right ” she murmured, 
and as she spoke her blue eyes tried to say : “ Am I not 
pretty? and don’t you love me a little? ” 

“Yes,” said Jonas. And his voice was so harsh that 
he clearly answered only the question that had been in 
her voice. 

IV 

A greater event than the silencing of Warsch and the 
reluctant conversion of Jonas to Terrorism was, how- 
ever, the product of that particular evening. While 
Schund was again and again repeating his conversation 
with the man, stranger or good friend, who had paid for 
his drink, Leitmeritz had kept fixed upon him his oblique 
black eyes ; whenever Schund repeated the word “ He 
said I was right ” his lip took on its characteristic 
curve, emphasised the circumflex wrinkles. When 
Schund finally lapsed into drunken sleep, Leitmeritz re- 
marked, “ Hum,” took Ekaterina apart and, for a long 
time, spoke to her in low tones. The girl began by 
gesticulating and protesting, but little by little she be- 
came quiet, listened while the Pole, who had seized her 
by the elbow, gently shook her and stabbed at her with 
his finger to mark his points. 

“ You may be right,” she murmured at length. She 
sat down at the table, took out her nail pad, but every 
now and then she flung a quick glance at the snoring 
Schund. 

This incident was the prelude of others, which ex- 
tended over many days, of conversations between Leit- 


KARSAVINA 


ms 


meritz and Warsch, between Ekaterina and Kalisch. 
Lydotchka was told by her friend what she was to think, 
and thought it. After some hesitation Jonas, in his new 
fervour, joined the conference, while Perekop sagely 
nodded his round head and returned to his sporting pre- 
occupations. They were uneasy, they watched Schund 
now, whom they had formerly ignored; they tried to 
draw him out ; Ekaterina used her power over him, asked 
him what he had been doing, whom he met. An atmos- 
phere formed round the man, which he would have 
noticed if he had not been stupefied, and it was an at- 
mosphere of suspicion. It began to be felt that Schund 
was dangerous. He was loyal to the cause, so far as he 
understood it ; he could be relied upon to serve it if some 
one told him what to do, but his brutalised stupidity 
was almost as dangerous as would have been treachery. 
They could not know what he might say when half- 
intoxicated; his very moroseness increased the risk, for 
he must need expression like his fellows: alcohol might 
loosen his tongue. And now that the Little Goodge 
Street Club, exasperated by the failure of the strike, 
deprived by their despair of Warsch’s moderation and 
Israel’s gentleness, was hurrying swiftly towards Ter- 
rorism, there was something to conceal. 

The days of theory were over. Before the furriers’ 
strike it would not have mattered if Schund had talked 
from the Club window ; it was lawful to preach Anarch- 
ism, it was lawful to be Anarchists, so long as nothing 
was done to put the theory into practice. Nothing had 
yet been done, nor had anything been planned, but the 
group though they never said so, knew that the time 
was coming when some force greater than they would 
seize and mould them for its own ends, compel them to 
do a deed. They carried the knowledge with them in 


m UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 

their several ways, Leitmeritz and Ekaterina joyfully, 
Warsch and Jonas with reluctance, Israel in sorrow. 
They did not care to discuss the application of the new 
policy; it was enough to know that it would have to 
be applied. With the growth of the idea came a desire 
for secrecy, a desire half self-protective and half 
enthusiastic; the thing they never talked about grew 
larger, more significant. As time passed it became more 
definite to each of them, it began to haunt them, to 
obsess them. Israel, Karsavina, Ekaterina, Leitmeritz, 
the more fanatical of the group, found that their 
thoughts were focused on ‘‘the red day”; Jonas and 
Warsch carried the burden too, sometimes tried to 
shake it off, wondered whether they could secede 
and return to ordinary, working, social, rate-paying 
life. Even Perekop found there was something in his 
brain besides the chances at the coming spring meet- 
ings. 

For time had passed, over four months, and again the 
winter was spending itself. The thing to come was their 
daily companion, a creature so fascinating that their 
minds perpetually dwelled upon it, so fearsome that they 
did not look it in the face. Even Ekaterina, who had 
shot at Pobiedonostzeff because she had been handed an 
unsigned slip by an unknown man somewhere in Vassili- 
Ostrof, found that conspiracy rested heavy upon her. 
It rested all the heavier because it did not explicitly 
exist; it was terrible because it was not clad in words. 
All knew that big events were forming in the far back 
of their joint individualities, and because they knew 
they were nervous, irritable. Ekaterina found herself 
laughing with unaccustomed shrillness when the com- 
fortable colonel who took her in to dinner asked her once 
more whether she really approved of the militant suflpra- 


KARSAVINA 


^75 


gettes. The unborn deed burdened even the lovers, 
stood behind Warsch on that unforgettable night when 
old Mossel lay ill in bed and his sister connived at Lina’s 
escape. Warsch had taken the girl to Hyde Park, and 
she had found him absent, almost careless. 

“ Du liehst mich nicht” she said, and heaved a deep 
sigh, prepared to shed a few tears, always ready in her 
clear blue eyes. 

Warsch impetuously kissed her, vowed that he adored 
her, that he thought of her only and always of her, but 
he knew that he lied, that something stood behind, 
patiently waiting. Jonas suffered in the same manner, 
more perhaps, for mixed with the horror of the inevi- 
table day was his consciousness that it might destroy 
instead of making him, that he would sacrifice respect- 
ability, comfort, security, liberty, Ethel, perhaps life. 
But he had to go on, running the gauntlet of his moods 
as a punished Russian soldier runs between the two rows 
of comrades who strike him with rods. 

And the atmosphere of suspicion grew. More than 
any of the others Ekaterina and Karsavina took up the 
role of inquisitors. Sometimes they would both sit by 
Schund’s side, trying to make him talk, reminding him 
of distant Prussia, of his old school, of the Sedantag 
festivities, hoping that once his memory was stimulated 
and he began to talk he might betray himself, say truly 
whether he had in London friends other than the group. 
He would gaze at them stupidly, without wondering 
why they spoke to him. 

“ Mag seiriy mag sem^ he usually replied to sug- 
gestions ; when questioned he became vacant, his light 
eyes stared, and he pulled at his fair moustache with the 
puzzled air of a child cornered by the school inspector. 

Weiss nity^ he sometimes answered to the most 


S76 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


obvious questions, and he spoke the truth. He did not 
know. He did not know, or at least he could not tell 
what he did in the evening, whom he spoke to, what he 
said. Though the group knew him to be thoroughly 
brutalised, sodden, to be, in fact, nothing save a wonder- 
fully efficient machine which dyed fur, this apparent 
reticence inflamed them. They began to disbelieve him, 
to construct round the Schund they knew a sinister per- 
sonality; their moods alternated. 

“ He might be a spy,” said Leitmeritz. 

‘‘ A fool, rather,” said Israel indulgently, “ but that 
may be worse.” 

“ True, a drunken fool, and he talks.” 

‘‘ I wish we were sure,” said Ekaterina in her low, 
intense voice. 

“ It would be amusing to remove him, tac,” said 
Leitmeritz. He laughed shrilly and Karsavina laughed 
with him. 

For Karsavina was haunted by the idea of Schund. 
She had no reason to think that the man was a traitor, 
but she saw that a fool was just as dangerous. An as- 
sociation such as this could not continue, and because 
she had, in a sense, the cure of Israel’s soul, she watched 
Schund more diligently than the others. They watched 
him too: Leitmeritz noted the hour of his departure 
from the workshop; Warsch, when possible, that of 
his arrival at Cleveland Street; Perekop sometimes 
shadowed him, but was soon deprived of his duties, for 
his reports were too picturesque. 

“ He stood in front of the ‘King and Keys ’ ; the 
lights were flaming like four suns in the fog. And the 
guns inside, I could hear them, they made me think of 
‘ Cannonball,’ he is thirteen to one. ...” 

“ ‘ Cannonball,’ you fool,” said Leitmeritz, “ what’s 


KARSAVINA 


m 

a horse got to do with Schund? And what guns inside 
the ‘ King and Keys ’ are you talking about ? There 
are no guns.” 

‘‘ I heard them, bang, bang ...” 

“Beer levers. Idiot. But what then.'*” 

“ Then he went in. I looked, I think he spoke to the 
barmaid.” 

“ Why did you not go in and listen.? ” 

“ I did not like. If I had not drunk I should 
not have been beaten by the barin in green. You 
know that. Or have I not told you the story.? 
That was when I was at Kharkov. I had finished my 
work ...” 

A shower of Polish imprecations swamped the absurd 
report. 

The atmosphere thickened through J anuary and 
February. Everybody wanted to talk to Schund, to 
walk with him. Lydotchka conceived the original plan 
of boring a hole through the wall of his room, so that 
his comings and goings might be observed. And Gal- 
genstein found that he left the Academy as early as he 
could to skulk about Tottenham Street and do his share 
of the watch. As for Israel and Karsavina, they found 
that Schund gained upon them, that his burly figure in- 
truded between them and their vision of the beautiful, 
that they could not concentrate upon the voluntary 
republic, upon the building of the road that led there, 
because Schund was in the way. It was Schund, always 
Schund, a perpetual menace of folly. 

“ Israel,” said Karsavina one night, “ I think of him 
while I work.” 

“ Well,” he answered placidly, “ so do I. But we 
must think of something.” 

Karsavina wanted to tell him that up to the coming 


^78 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


of this new peril she had thought mainly of him, but 
Schund and his significance had filtered even into her 
passion. She had to think of him. 

“ I fear we are growing hysterical,” said Israel. 

It was true. Their nerves were jangled. Often 
now, instead of seldom, Leitmeritz struck Sonia ; 
Warsch avoided Lina because she always asked what 
was the matter with him. Ekaterina lost patience with 
Lydotchka, applied to her the term ‘‘ copy-cat,” which 
she had acquired from an English schoolgirl friend. 
Lydotchka wept, was kissed, comforted, copied again, 
and so went on with her stormy friendship, while her 
heart was wounded too by the absolute indifference of 
Jonas. She thought of Siberia sometimes, for it never 
occurred to her that England had not some handy 
Siberia for the like of her. Then came the revelation; 
it revealed nothing, it was nothing but suspicion, but 
given the state of the group’s nerves it was final. 
Karsavina burst in with the news at eleven, when none 
save Israel, Leitmeritz, Warsch and Ekaterina were 
present. 

“ I’ve caught him,” she whispered, ‘‘ I saw him. I 
followed him from the workshop. He went far, far, to 
King’s Cross, then along the Gray’s Inn Road; he did 
not turn round, it was easy. There he stopped, spoke 
to a man ...” 

“A strange man!” said Warsch anxiously. 

“Yes. A strange man! And for some time. The 
man nodded, Schund turned sharply up a lane. When 
I got there ... he was gone.” 

There was a long silence. They were afraid, all of 
them. Then Leitmeritz spoke — 

“ Leave him to me, tac, I can use a knife like an 
Italian.” 


KARSAVINA 279 

“ No, no,” Warsch protested, ‘‘ how do we 
know . . . ? ” 

‘‘We know nothing, except that he is a fool. But 
he must be removed.” 

“ He must be removed,” Ekaterina repeated. 

“ Yes,” said Karsavina, “ we are not safe.” 

The discussion did not occupy much time. The Club 
was too excited, too frightened to argue. Nobody sug- 
gested that Schund should be tried. He was sentenced. 
A few weeks later, after Schund had disappeared, 
Karsavina led Israel to the lane ; a few doors up he saw 
a small public-house. 

“ I wonder,” he said, “ whether Schund merely asked 
the man where he could get a drink.” 

“ I wonder,” said Karsavina. For a second she felt 
guilty, then tossed her ash-flaxen hair. “ What mat- 
ters.? he was a fool, a danger.” 

For Schund was removed in a style so brilliant that 
nothing of it came to the knowledge of the other mem- 
bers of the Club. The scheme was conceived by Karsa- 
vina, owing to Warsch’s dislike of bloodshed, and exe- 
cuted by Ekaterina, whose power over Schund had not 
waned. It was executed ruthlessly and securely, for the 
Club were assured of the help of the police : Israel knew 
the psychology of the English. 

“ They will do what we expect,” he said. “ The 
English always do.” 


V 

The English did what was expected of them. Karsa- 
vina’s scheme was perfected by the small meeting and 
consisted in this: Schund was to be told as a great 
secret that the time for direct action had come, that the 


280 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


Club proposed to organise a general strike and to ad- 
vertise Syndicalist sincerity by setting fire simultane- 
ously to the Houses of Parliament, the Bank, and, if 
possible, the Carlton Club. This would be accompanied 
by a good deal of killing, while the agents would be sent 
among the hooligans in the East End, Marylebone and 
Camberwell to organise riots. But all this meant 
money, for weapons would have to be bought, watchmen 
corrupted, agents paid; if the riots were to succeed the 
hooligans would have to be well provided with ammuni- 
tion. 

“ It is because we trust you, Schund,” said Ekaterina, 
“ that we have chosen you. We want you to do some- 
thing.” 

“What?” asked Schund. He was fairly sober, for 
Ekaterina had fixed the meeting between them in the 
dinner hour. They were in Whitefield Gardens ; a faint 
glow that was not quite sunlight filtered through the 
watery sky, imparting some whiteness to the asphalt. 
They sat on a seat in front of the little beds of leafless 
shrubs and talked of the great scheme, while dirty 
little boys often came to ask them for the right time. 
Ekaterina explained at length what was to be done, 
stated as plainly as if she were talking to a child what 
was expected of him. 

“It is quite simple,” she said; “we have found out 
everything about it. There is a bank in Margaret 
Street which sends up its money to the head office once 
a week only. We want you to break in while we look 
out.” 

She watched his expressionless features as she spoke. 
They did not move, and he seemed more brutish than 
ever as he stooped forward, hands on knees, for the 
attitude accentuated the quasi-deformity of his head. 


KARSAVINA 


S81 


the directness of the line which joined it with his 
shoulders. • He seenjed entirely without a neck. She 
observed, too, that her power over him remained unim- 
paired. The light eyes fixed upon hers, then slowly 
roved to her purple mouth; there was no fire in them, 
but she could feel that more expressive eyes, animated by 
a lesser passion, would have glowed as they rested upon 
her. She was a little afraid, but she was brave too; 
she negligently drew off her gloves so that he could see 
her hands. As soon as his eyes were fixed upon them 
she knew that his will was gone. 

“We will tell you exactly what to do,” she murmured, 
“ and if you do it you will be a hero. You may be 
killed, you may go to gaol, you may never see me again. 
But if you succeed, and if you want me, then I am 
yours.” 

Schund did not reply. For a very long time he 
looked at her hands, which were crossed in her lap and 
quivered a little. This manoeuvre disturbed her more 
than the wait at Tula Station for the man she was to 
kill, for this might be a faithful friend of her cause, and 
she was snaring him, snaring him, too, with the bait of 
the only fineness that was in him. In his brutal way he 
loved her; she knew it, and it stirred and frightened 
her to be loved with this silent intensity, and she had 
to ruin him. “ Our Cause, our Cause,” she said to her- 
self again and again, and the words invigorated her, 
estranged her from any ideas of justice or mercy; she 
was willing to lay down her life for it, she now had to 
surrender her love of sincerity. At that moment she 
was a woman no longer, but the instrument of her prin- 
ciples; she was devoured by her own ideal. With a 
smile that showed all her perfect teeth she turned to 
him. 


282 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


Schund was still looking at her. He did not speak, 
but a tremor passed through his big frame; slowly he 
laid upon her two hands his own enormous hand. For 
fully a minute he gripped her with every finger, and she 
shivered : she was captured, if only for a while ; soon he 
would be in gaol, but until then she was in pawn. At 
last, with a nervous laugh, she freed her hands, gave 
him a long, shy smile and left him still sitting on the 
seat. 

Within the next week the plan matured. The police 
were anonymously warned by a letter written on paper 
bought in Shepherd’s Bush and posted in Brixton. 
Schund was told to leave Kohn on the plea that he was 
returning to Germany, and to abandon Cleveland Street 
for a Clerkenwell doss-house; he was drilled to call 
“ Moden ” and to say that he was an unemployed joiner ; 
then he was set to work at two in the morning to cut 
with a file the bars of the basement window. Long 
before the four plain-clothes men who were in ambush in 
areas seized him, Karsavina, Ekaterina and Israel, who 
were supposed to watch from the corners of Wells Street 
and Great Titchfield Street, had escaped. 

Within five minutes Israel and Karsavina reached the 
house in Cleveland Street. The girl had taken Israel’s 
arm; she was trembling violently and quietly sobbing; 
her face twitched convulsively and, little by little, her 
ash-flaxen hair fell over her eai^s. When at last she 
reached Israel’s room she broke down completely, stag- 
gered to the bed, fell across it and buried her face in the 
pillow. For some time Israel gravely watched her, 
thinking that to weep would do her good. His mood 
was one of sorrow, for a good comrade had been sacri- 
ficed for nothing, because his stupidity might endanger 
the Cause. He felt pity for Karsavina because it was 


KARSAVINA 


her hand had struck Schund down, and he admired her 
for having conceived the plan. As he saw the slim 
shoulders shaking while she sobbed, he wondered how to 
comfort her. He was not human enough to do the only 
and the necessary thing, to kneel by her side, take her 
in his arms, cover her face with kisses. Upon the table 
he saw his violin; he took it up and, very softly, so as 
not to wake the sleepers in the house, he played her 
Karkin’s Young Prisoner. As the tender, sorrowful 
notes fell, Karsavina’s sobs became less loud, then 
stopped. She raised her head. 

“ Good-bye freedom ; good-bye sun, light ; good-bye 
my youth, love and family,” sang Israel to the tune of 
the violin. Karsavina’s eyes glowed out, immense and 
dark in her pale, tear-marked face. Her hair hung in 
coils about her shoulders. The music ended. Israel 
looked at her, violin in hand. 

“ Do not grieve, Karsavina,” he said, “ you have seen 
ugliness to-night, but you can see beauty also. In this 
contrasting world they are wedded. Look, through 
that window you can see the sky. It is dark, like the 
darkest blue-black velvet, and see the stars in millions, 
like diamonds, hung in it. Do not look at the unhappy 
earth. Look at the beautiful and feel how beautiful 
you are.” 

Karsavina did not reply for a long time. She 
looked not at the sky, but at him, at the red glow of his 
beard in the candle-light, at his dream-laden eyes. 

“ You,” she said hoarsely, “ you are beautiful. It is 
you I love, Israel.” 

Israel hesitated, laid down the violin, then stepped 
towards her. He was not surprised ; he was not sorry, 
as he had been for Augusta, for Karsavina was not a 
slave. For the first time in his life he felt stirring 


^84 UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 

within him a feeling he could not analyse. Karsavina, 
with anxious face and staring eyes, seemed to touch him 
as no woman had touched him. He knew that he valued 
her, that some essential principle of him needed her. 
But he could not say that he loved her. 

“ I love you,” Karsavina repeated hoarsely ; ‘‘ I love 
you. You do not love me, I know. You have lost 
your heart to our Cause. I give it mine too . . . 

as a burnt-offering.’’ 

Israel went to the window, looked out into the night. 
After a while he signed her to come to his side. Obedi- 
ent and humble, she rose, stood beside him. For a long 
time they stood thus, breathing in the cold night air. 
Insensibly she drew nearer, until she could touch him. 
He did not move and, at last, with a nervous movement 
she seized his hand, drew his arm about her waist; she 
laid her head against his shoulder. He looked down 
upon the ash-flaxen hair; she was weeping softly, and 
it hurt him to think that he could not weep with her, 
that he was not hers, could not be hers, for all of him 
belonged to his dream. Tenderly, but without passion, 
he caressed her heavy hair. 


VI 

The unemployed joiner, Moden, was sentenced to 
twelve months’ hard labour, and recommended for de- 
portation. 


PART IV 


THE BOMB 





CHAPTER 1 


CAMBRIDGE BROADENS ITS VIEWS 

The Schund incident did not cause great talk in the 
Little Goodge Street Club. The five who had been con- 
cerned in the removal of the danger did not think it 
advisable to tell their story to the others : they had made 
no compact, but they did not betray by a single word 
that they knew what had become of Schund. When he 
left Kohn, nominally to return to Germany, there was 
no one to question him except Perekop ; the mujik shook 
hands with him, accepting in childlike manner the 
growled information Schund gave him. He then re- 
turned to his own and inexhaustible meditations ; he had 
nothing to say when at the Club, the disappearance of 
the Prussian was commented on, quite casually by Jonas 
and Sonia : they had nothing to say or to ask, for Schund 
had never figured among his fellow^s save as a soulless, 
silent creature whose disappearance did not matter. 
They noted that a potential danger had vanished, and 
thought no more of the subject. Lydotchka, because 
she was still dumbly attracted to Jonas, and therefore 
vitally interested in any form of love, rallied Ekaterina 
on the loss of an admirer, took her snub and forgot. 
Indeed, Schund was never mentioned after a week had 
elapsed; his trial under the name of Moden passed un- 
perceived. 

Small as was the effect upon those who did not know 
the undoing of Schund proved, however, to be a power- 
ful stimulant for the active five. They had at first an 
extraordinary sense of freedom, they felt that they 
could again be frank, speak as they walked up and down 
287 


288 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


and round the dirty room, without fear that their words 
would be repeated by a drunken man. This exhilarated 
them, altered them; the lifting of fear was like a new 
youth, and all the graces of youth seemed to come with 
it. Relief from pressure proved to be an unexpectedly 
fine joy. Leitmeritz was most changed; for several 
days he showed Sonia something approaching atten- 
tions. He spontaneously bought her new boots. 
Ekaterina’s state of mind was more complex, for her 
sense of guilt did not at once pass away; while killing 
a police officer would have been a good joke incapable 
of spoiling a dinner, the sacrifice of this brute who 
dumbly loved her was tragic. It was necessary, but 
. . . and Ekaterina felt with a shiver the pressure 
of his enormous hand. Yet, as time passed, the great 
hand grew lighter and she felt more clearly the relief. 
Israel showed no sign of elation: his melancholy merely 
became franker; while Karsavina, absorbed in her con- 
fessed passion, soon forgot everything in the pleasure 
and pain it gave her. Warsch alone was deeply 
stirred. For him the affair had been mentally revolu- 
tionary. He had gone through with it, for he was 
deeply compromised with the group and saw no means 
of drawing back; following immediately on the collapse 
of the furriers’ strike, the fear of Schund had taken 
hold of him and become such an obsession that he could 
free himself only by ridding himself of him. But 
Warsch was at heart soft, sentimental; he could not 
forget that the Prussian had shown him the love of an 
ill-used dog, and though he had resented being followed 
into beer cellars, though the idea of that faithful, 
stupid presence had preyed upon him as soon as he 
began to doubt its discretion, he thought himself de- 
graded. He sometimes wished that he had been man 


THE BOMB 


289 


enough to obstruct the scheme, to knock Schund over 
some bridge ; he belonged to that breed of man which 
thinks a blow between the eyes nobler than a stab in the 
back. He hated indirect methods and no logic could 
prevail against his feeling, not even Israel’s, when his 
friend quoted Machiavelli and asked him why he 
scrupled to deceive the man he would destroy. He felt 
relief with the rest, but he had sown the seeds of an- 
other feeling, part remorse, part shame, part doubt. 
Doubt was over him again, doubt that grew with time, 
for the years that had passed had not re-created his 
views ; when a strike was in progress Warsch was ready 
for anything; when the strike was over his blood began 
to cool, and soon he was ready for nothing. 

Yet, in spite of all these cross currents of love, con- 
science and ambition, the secret purpose which had 
been forming in Little Goodge Street seemed suddenly 
to have been released; it had been checked only by the 
sinister presence, and now it was rising swiftly as a 
falcon unhooded. Vaguely at first, and then more 
definitely, the “ big thing ” began to take shape ; it 
was recognised that strikes, excellent as they might be 
when training was required, were not an end in them- 
selves, also that they were difficult to initiate, and that 
the great trades, such as the railways and the mines, 
did not in the least wish to subvert social order: a ten 
per cent, increase in wages would have stifled their 
grievances for ten years. 

“ Besides,” said Kalisch, as he discussed with Warsch 
the chances of a general strike, “ we are not in America. 
The English are a race, not an international congress; 
they despise foreigners and they dislike them. If we 
were members of an English trade union they might 
listen to us after twenty or thirty years. Now . . . 


^90 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


we’re only dirty foreigners. No, the English artisan 
believes in Imperialistic Socialism, the brotherhood of 
man with an English viceroy as father and master of 
the flock.” 

Swiftly the extremists, Leitmeritz, Israel and Ekat- 
erina, supported by Karsavina and, of course, Ly- 
dotchka, formed a vague but resolute plan. Public 
opinion was asleep, it needed a shock, a big one. It 
needed something that would cause horror, indignation, 
something to make it hysterical and therefore active. 
Murder of some kind. 

“ They are too contented,” said Ekaterina, “ or if 
discontented, they do not know how to show it. They 
cannot fight. They can only obey those who tell them 
to fight. A little blood, a little excitement, and leaders 
will arise. You can subvert society only by riot; it is 
like a machine into which you throw a stone. Crack! 
broken. Stopped. Yes, just a little blood.” 

“ A lot of blood,” said Leitmeritz gleefully. 

“ A little, perhaps,” said Israel, “ but it must be 
blood that will be missed. Royal, holy or financial, 
blood from the heart of society.” 

The others looked at him. He was saying what all 
had thought, that the time was coming when an at- 
tempt should be made on the life of some highly placed 
person. The victim was not selected, and Israel’s 
words opened up splendid possibilities; apart from the 
Royal Family there were a number of Cabinet Minis- 
ters, a couple of Archbishops, some attractive financiers. 
Leitmeritz conned a list in his mind, a long list of 
power and wealth. 

“We couldn’t kill them all,” he muttered sadly, 
“ though perhaps with a little care . . . tac, that 
would be fine.” 


THE BOMB 


291 


A heavy silence hung ’ over them for a while. 
Warsch’s big boots went tap-tap on the floor. He did 
not like this discussion, it was taking a shape too ma- 
terial for his taste. He had often before that night 
heard talk of killing, but principles only were then 
being discussed; a formal plot was not being hatched. 
Now the question was being considered so quietly and 
with a definiteness so new that he found himself grow 
hot; his scar itched as it always did when he was ex- 
cited. He wanted to protest, to cry out that all this 
was useless, that reaction was born of revolution, that 
power and money would raise ten candidates for every 
prominent man who was slain. But, in the heavy, pur- 
poseful silence he could not speak. He looked across to 
Jonas, upon whom he had often relied for support, but 
the young man sat hunched up on the floor, his dark, 
bulbous brow glistening with beads of perspiration as 
he roasted near the range ; he sat with his brown hands 
close-clasped, and there was a fierce intentness in his 
eyes. He was being slowly driven out of his natural 
course by his association with a family that hated his 
ideas. When he spoke he too seemed resolute. 

‘‘ There’s something in it. At least it would be 
something done.” 

And again the Club was silent while each member of 
the group concentrated upon the personal application 
of the words. This idea of killing, it seemed to Warsch 
so devilish, so useless, so absurd that, as he could not 
cry out against it, because he was so hemmed in that 
he could not escape from specious argument and trucu- 
lent question, he tried to thrust it away, to think of 
something else. He thought of Lina, her clear blue 
eyes, her yellow hair, the thrill he found in her timid 
kisses, the intoxication of her voice when she said “ Ich 


292 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


liehe dichf^^ over and over Warsch repeated the sen- 
tence in his daydreams, and others, and endearing terms, 
Liehling, Schatz. His thoughts flew from peak to peak 
of fancy, from Lina to old Mossel, who now seemed to 
look the other way when Warsch shyly glanced through 
the window. Perhaps old Mossel was coming round ; 
Lina cried as much as possible at meals. Perhaps that 
affected him. This theory made the big German so 
happy that, for a long time, he did not hear the con- 
versation, general now if quiet. At last, though, he 
heard Jonas repeat — 

“It would be something done.” 

But Warsch went on thinking of a fat, rosy hand 
that wore a new wedding-ring. 


II 

It is not good for art when artists mix with none 
save artists, particularly when they all belong to the 
same school; low company is as essential to high think- 
ing as is manure to the fairest flowers. It braces, it 
exasperates, it enables the artist to react against ugli- 
ness, it provides him with leverage. As with art so 
with politics, with economics. In spite of their bold 
talk and incipient plans the group might indefinitely 
have contented itself with wrangles as to questions on 
which they were agreed, if an irritant had not appeared 
in the shape of Mr. Thomas. He was a friend of 
Jonas’s, so far, at least, as Mr. Thomas could be a 
friend of anybody’s; he was a patron, rather, a person 
who was indulgently ready to give praise where it was 
due, assuming, of course, that no praise could elevate 
the recipient to his own mental level. He appeared as 


THE BOMB 


^93 


a mild-mannered gentleman, aged about thirty-five, im- 
maculately dressed in a respectable black coat, grey 
trousers just light enough to be distinguished but not 
dashing, small, well-blacked boots (but he eschewed 
patent leather as foppish), a stiff shirt and a black 
tie. Mr. Thomas would have liked to wear the Cam- 
bridge colours, as he would have liked to tattoo the 
word “ Cambridge ” on his forehead, but he realised 
that the blue was a little light when worn anywhere 
save between Putney and Mortlake. The blue was not 
exactly in Good Taste. 

Mr. Thomas’s clothes were perhaps more important 
than his features, for these did not amount to much. 
Under scanty, reddish hair his forehead seemed high, 
but was not such ; he had blue china eyes whose expres- 
sion was half-disdainful of the blatant world, half- 
judicially tolerant of its foibles; his plump little pleased 
mouth stood out rather cherubic from his rosy cheeks; 
his chin was agreeably resolute, but not assertive. His 
hands, kindly and fluttering, deprecated, commended, 
gave benediction. Jonas knew Mr. Thomas because 
he had been compelled to know him while at Cambridge. 
Mr. Thomas lived at, by and /or Cambridge. At cer- 
tain intervals he left it, usually to mix with his fellow 
men, represented by his father’s curate, his six sisters 
and the village doctor. This done he returned to Par- 
nassus, of which he was a Fellow. The Greatest Fel- 
low of the Greatest College of the Greatest University 
in the World. 

Mr. Thomas considered it his duty To Take An In- 
terest in undergraduates. He had called on Jonas, 
told him that he was a Liberal. 

“ I have always been a Liberal,” he said, throwing 
out the little, plump mouth, ‘‘ an advanced Liberal. I 


294 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


believe in the People. I take an interest in the People. 
That’s why I take an Interest in a young man like you.” 

Jonas had not felt very much flattered by his inclu- 
sion among the People, for the Board School and the 
Minories were not quite far away enough to allow him 
this luxury. But he had not been able to get rid of 
Mr. Thomas. The Fellow had compelled him to recite 
his record, which he punctuated with “ Excellent,” 
“ Most Praiseworthy,” “ This does you a great deal 
of credit ” ; he had thoroughly approved of Jonas, 
knighted him on the spot with the sword of Advanced 
Liberalism. Jonas struggled on to his wranglership 
and, all through, Mr. Thomas was blandly with him, 
encouraging him with tales of other “ fine young men 
of the people,” curbing at times his raw enthusiasm 
with indulgent warnings that certain things were “ not 
done.” Though Mr. Thomas could not himself throw 
a ball except in the girls’-school manner, he even tried 
to induce Jonas to take up rowing — ‘‘ fine manly 
sport.” He failed, but he retained Jonas, fastened on 
him by means of a gluey kind of tempered praise. It 
was no use kicking; the victim only drove his foot 
deeper into the stuff and was told that young men 
should not be so impetuous, that it was “ not done.” 

One day Mr. Thomas came up to town, a place for 
which he had some contempt, as it seemed to him rather 
large and rude ; but he came up, as he told Jonas, whom 
he at once looked up, because he considered that it did 
not do always to live in one place. 

“ I believe a man should have Broad Sympathies. 
Of course there are things one cannot approve of 
. . . features of the Metropolis ...” A depre- 
cating hand extinguished in the Thames London’s 
“ gilded haunts of vice.” “ But I do not believe in 


THE BOMB 295 

closing one’s eyes to them. Oh, no. One should be 
sorry for the People.” 

Jonas had burned to throw Mr. Thomas out, but at 
this precise moment the Fellow congratulated him upon 
the “ excellent beginning he had made in the scholastic 
profession.” He had another fit of rage when adjured 
to travel. 

“ You should make a point of going abroad, Galgen- 
stein. Intercourse with foreign peoples is so broaden- 
ing. I never spend less than thirty days every year 
in Brittany or Belgium. Do not think, of course, that 
I believe that a man should not know his own country 
first ...” 

Jonas was about to be rude, but was then congratu- 
lated on his article on “ A Possible Application of 
Differential Calculus to Trigonometry,” which he had 
published in the transactions of the London Mathema- 
tical Society. The article was two years old, but Mr. 
Thomas remembered; he had seen it (he always saw 
these things), and thought it right to give praise 
where praise was due. 

So Jonas collapsed, answered every question, was be- 
nignly rewarded with approval, chastened by qualified 
praise and tentative deprecation. His cherished 
economic views, having rashly touched the glue, were 
amiably drawn out of him. 

“ Dear me,” said Mr. Thomas, without any sign of 
surprise, of anything save intelligent interest, “ that is 
very advanced, Galgenstein, very advanced. Yet we 
may obtain ideas from many sources. You are per- 
fectly right to make friends with members of the Peo- 
ple; there is a great deal in their views, in reason, 
naturally. You must take me to meet them.” 

Jonas had laughed at the idea, but Mr. Thomas was 


296 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


determined; he had come up to London to broaden his 
mind, to cause his Advanced Liberalism to advance to 
the limit beyond which were demagogy and vulgarity. 
He suavely compelled Jonas to manufacture lies, a din- 
ner on Saturday, obviously untrue, friends to dinner 
on Thursday, sacredness on Friday night (“a young 
man should not neglect his religious duties”), a lady 
on Wednesday (‘‘I always think that a little feminine 
society is good for young men ”) ; his invention failing, 
Jonas had consented to introduce him to the Club, 
prudently warned Israel and the others that their 
anarchy would have to be philosophic, not militant. 
The consensus of opinion was that it would be rather 
funny. 

Mr. Thomas behaved exceedingly well. He showed 
no sign of looking at the group as if they were caged 
tigers at the Zoo. He shook hands with Israel without 
allowing his eyes to dwell for a moment on his amazing 
hair; he answered Leitmeritz’s sneer with a winning 
little smile that said, “ I can see you are a wit.” He 
divined that Sonia was the lady of the house, bowed, 
and told her that it was very kind of her to allow him 
to come, and that he hoped he was not interfering with 
the stew, the smell of which was most excellent. He 
discovered that he knew, in Kensington, friends of 
Karsavina’s and Lydotchka’s, stated that he heard 
they were very advanced Suffragettes (“ I am sure I 
have a great deal of sympathy with their demands”). 
He failed with Perekop, but told Jonas that he thought 
him “ most picturesque ” and suggestive of Twenty- 
three TaleSf by Tolstoy, an excellent book.” Omitting 
nobody, he informed Warsch that at Cambridge they 
looked upon Berlin as the centre of European culture. 

Then he beamed upon the entire company and dis- 


THE BOMB 


m 


covered, without apparent surprise, that the nine pairs 
of eyes were fixed upon him. With the exception of 
Jonas nobody had ever seen anything like this before; 
they did not know this peculiar English breed; their 
idea of Cambridge was hazy, largely made up of reli- 
gious-looking buildings, boat races and wine parties ; for 
them Cambridge was the rich man’s finishing school, a 
kind of colander through which public-school boys were 
squeezed in batches so as to come out true to type, also 
in batches, but they could hardly believe that they came 
out like this, bland, amiable, friendly; their idea of 
a Cambridge man was something altogether more vigor- 
ous : he ought to have been something like a stockbroker 
with a taste for racing, or like a north-country iron- 
master, a harm of some kind, not a mild person who 
looked at them rather kindly. After a short silence 
Leitmeritz made what he considered a suitable remark. 
He had absolutely no other in his head. 

“ Fine day,” he said roughly. 

« Very fine for the time of the year,” said Mr. 
Thomas. “ How comfortable it is in your Club. I 
suppose your rules would not allow me to join,” he 
added in playful manner. 

A long and rather blank silence did not disturb him; 
it was ended by Kalisch, who amiably said — 

“ There are no rules. Our association is voluntary. 
We respect no laws.” 

“ Exactly, exactly, that is what I have always 
thought. Anarchism is quite easy to understand, with 
a little sympathy. As an Advanced Liberal I am, of 
course, quite in sympathy with you ; of course we don’t 
see eye to eye on policy, but that is a minor point. I 
am sure that if you co-operate with the Liberals we can 
do a great deal, a great deal.” 


29S 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


“ Pass some good laws,” said Ekaterina mischiev- 
ously. 

‘‘ You are perfectly right, there is a crying need for 
certain laws; look at drunkenness, for instance, how it 
is sapping the vitality of the race, and the land, we 
want men to go back to the land and live out their 
happy lives there.” 

“ On small holdings ? ” said Karsavina, taking up the 
joke. 

Exactly. Only a question of method. Of course 
I take it you are all for peasant proprietors? Rather 
rash, still ...” 

“ No,” said Leitmeritz trenchantly, “ we are for no 
proprietors.” 

“ But, my dear sir. Socialism ...” 

« We’re not Socialists ...” 

“ I know, I know, how I sympathise with you on that ! 
Now we Liberals . . .” 

“Are Socialists,” said Jonas. 

Mr. Thomas looked at the young man as if he were 
politely shocked. It was not quite fair of him. 
(“ Not, mind you, that I do not respect any honest 
expression of opinion.”) “ Exactly,” he said in hurried 
tones, “ or rather no, there is a difference, a vast dif- 
ference.” 

“What difference?” Kalisch asked. 

Mr. Thomas began to explain. He explained at 
enormous length that railway, mine, land-nationalisa- 
tion, everything he had reluctantly swallowed with the 
coating word “ advanced,” was not Socialism. The 
group listened to him without interrupting him, which 
he remarked upon (“ I believe in free speech ”), but the 
feeling began to grow upon him that they were not 
taking the gospel as he meant them to; he began to 


THE BOMB 


S99 


wonder whether they were taking it at all. He 
stopped. His mouth had but closed when questions and 
arguments came from every quarter. 

“ Hasn’t a man a right to get drunk ? ” 

“ Peasant proprietorship makes capitalists.” 

“Do you believe in feeding school-children?” 

“ Are you in favour of Tariff Reform? ” 

“ What do you think of the middle-class? ” 

As soon as the turmoil subsided Mr. Thomas tried to 
answer questions. He felt elated, he beamed on these 
“ intelligent working men,” the “ pick of the artisan 
class ” ; fine, enthusiastic fellows, he would set their 
doubts at rest. But he made a fatal mistake: there 
was but one question he could not, with the help of 
stray memories from the papers, have completely 
fogged with figures and disciplined facts, and he 
chose that one, probably because it had been 
uttered in gentle, almost hesitating tones, by the pic- 
turesque man with the great red beard and mane of 
hair. 

“ The . . . middle-class,” he faltered : his cherubic 
mouth seemed distressed, his small hands deprecated 
the query; his hesitation did not warn him that this 
was a general question, one of those fatal things a fool 
may not touch with impunity. Mr. Thomas was not 
exactly a fool, but within three sentences he was sink- 
ing into the general question morass, and the more he 
struggled the deeper he sank. 

“ The middle-class . . . ” he gasped “ is the back- 
bone of the nation.” 

“ Some people say that the nation is going to the 
dogs.” 

“ Oh, I don’t, I’m an optimist. Young men should 
always be optimists,” purred Mr. Thomas. “ The 


300 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


nation is all right, it only wants a little managing, for 
its own good.” 

“ And management devolves upon the middle-class ? ” 

“ Well, more or less, now that the aristocracy has 
gone. . . . ” 

‘‘By what right.? Conquest.? Ideals? Culture?” 

“ You don’t quite understand,” Mr. Thomas pro- 
tested. And then, in the presence of the group, who 
now sat about, mostly on the floor, and watched the 
duel, he actually began to defend the middle-class, the 
middle-class he had discarded in less advance days when 
he took up Ruskin, William Morris (as an artist only), 
George Moore and French cigarettes. In his befool- 
ment he found himself babbling of the sanctity of the 
home, of the moderate man as the steadfast check on 
rash County Councils ; he even used the word “ spirit- 
ual,” though “ he respected any sincere attitude 
towards religion.” 

“ I see,” said Kalisch coldly, when Mr. Thomas 
stopped to wonder whether he thought quite as much of 
the middle-class as he had said, “ you believe in them, 
and whole-heartedly. Not in a semi-detached way. 
Yet you know the middle-class is semi-detached in more 
than its houses; is it not semi-attached to everything? 
— to religion, that is, the Established Church, to poli- 
tics, that is. Liberalism and Progressive Conservatism, 
a strange beast that, to principles, to most things.” 

“ Oh, one can’t go all the way at once, one must 
compromise ...” 

“ No,” shouted Ekaterina from the floor, “ never.” 

“ A very proper idea for the young, dear Miss 
Toromin ; still, we men ...” 

“ Middle-class men,” said Kalisch, smiling. 

“Well, middle-class men; I am not fond of class dis- 


THE BOMB 


301 


tinctions, Mr. Kalisch, but I will accept that — we 
have a trust, we are trustees for the people.” 

“ Your fees are heavy. And you don’t like them 
reduced. You can see the middle-class soul revealed 
whenever you want to do anything for the servants. 
Look at the half-crown insurance against injury? Lis- 
ten to what the papers are saying, read what the ladies 
who employ a cook and three maids write about having 
to pay ten shillings a year ! ” 

“ Pardon me, those are Unionists ...” 

“ They are employers. I do not believe Unionists 
are different from Liberals. You can do something 
for coal miners, because the middle-class doesn’t see 
them, but if you do something for the servants, their 
slaves, out comes the savagery.” ■ 

“ That is not the Liberals’ view. Their one desire 
is that 'their servants should be protected and 
happy ...” 

“ Yes, happy in the middle-class way, happy . . . 
in reason.” 

“ But Mr. Kalisch, surely you will agree that we 
must do everything in reason. The middle way, after 
all, is the only way.” 

“ There is no middle way.” Israel spoke slowly and 
harshly now. “ That is why the middle-class is ruined. 
They have lost the way because they have been afraid 
to take one of two roads: the aristocratic, which is 
tyranny, or the anarchic, which is freedom. Both 
these roads are good, both lead to the same place; as 
there is nobody fit to follow the first, we follow the 
second. But the middle-class, middle, middle, middle, 
in their fear of anything definite, have shrunk from 
both roads, tried to strike between them through fog- 
covered marshes, with fogged brains, and now they are 


S02 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


lost. They do not know what they want, they only 
know what their fellows want. So low have they sunk 
that they do not even do things because others do them, 
for that might be custom and might not be bad: they 
do them because they think others do them. And they 
censor those who do not do them because their neigh- 
bours censor them. It is a circle. I do not know who 
described it . . . and now it is an amazing thing, 
this circle, within which the middle-class huddle, an 
extraordinary outcome of democracy ahd tyranny, 
soup-tickets and exclusiveness, votes for everybody and 
soldiers to fire on the mob.” 

There were murmurs of assent from every corner of 
the room, then a babble of talk, guttural English, 
some German. Mr. Thomas looked feebly at tbe red- 
headed man who had delivered this ranting tirade 
(“ Youth is always hot-headed ”) and tried to give 
him a smile. He even said, “ I like to see a young man 
keen. But believe me, Mr. Kalisch, you’ll think very 
differently when you’re older.” 

Israel had answered him with a most peculiar smile, 
for which Mr. Thomas immediately found the necessary 
artistic equivalent, the smile of La Gioconda. Mr. 
Thomas also surveyed one by one his amazing com- 
panions, most of whom were still wrangling amicably 
about the middle-class. He reflected that they were 
a rather terrifying set, then with some satisfaction that 
he was enlarging his experience; he went on enlarging 
it by watching Sonia mend a sock, Ekaterina polish 
her nails and Perekop sit in a corner with little pieces 
of paper. These were sixpenny tips for the Chester 
Cup, but Mr. Thomas concluded that the long-haired 
mujik was composing verses. He went up to congratu- 
late him on the wild quality of the Slavonic soul and to 


THE BOMB 


303 


tell him that East was East, etc., but Perehop imme- 
diately stuffed the papers into his pocket with an air 
of suspicion. Mr. Thomas found it impossible to enter 
the group made up by Warsch, Jonas and Leitmeritz; 
every time he drew near them the broad back of the 
big German seemed in his way. He was pushed as 
much as drawn to the chair near the range where sat 
the red-headed man. 

As Israel indolently lay back in his chair, staring at 
the dirty ceiling, his red curls spread out over the broad 
white hands that supported his head, Mr. Thomas was 
suddenly struck by his beauty. In this attitude the 
length of his nose was not evident, while his eyes were 
immense and his red eyebrows hard marked as if with 
a paint-brush. 

“ Extraordinary couple,” Mr. Thomas said half 
aloud. 

For Karsavina sat on the floor, almost at Israel’s 
feet, her legs crossed under her black skirt, her slim 
lines moulded in a blue blouse of mercerised silk. Upon 
her small hands, which were white but work-marked in 
many places, she supported her chin, so that it threw 
forward her small red mouth. She looked at Israel 
unswervingly from under the coils of ash-flaxen hair 
which fell over her forehead. 

Mr. Thomas, artistic again, was reminded of a pic- 
ture he had once seen at the Royal Academy, the 
“ Pifferi ” or the ‘‘ Zingari.” But he could not waste, 
on beholding, time which might be made improving: 
he coughed, genially addressing the red-headed man. 

“ You know, Mr. Kalisch,” he confided to him, 
‘‘ though I agree with you in the main, you shocked me 
a little. Of course,” he added (with a smile that said, 
“You and I, just you and I,”), “I didn’t say so be- 


304 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


fore the others. But after all we must have laws, as 
a protection.” 

“Do thieves decrease because you punish?” 

“ No, but think how many there would be if we did 
not punish them.” 

“ A logical fallacy, Mr. Thomas ; I think you call it 
petitio principii at Cambridge.” 

Mr. Thomas did not reply. His mental condition 
recalled that of a boxer who, having received the regu- 
lation “ one over the heart and one on the jaw,” lies 
impotent in the ring and listens to the “ seven . . . 
eight . . . nine.” The case, its merits, the politics 
of the world were blotted out. What did they matter? 
He, an academic, had made a logical slip. It was 
tragic. It was incredible. He hardly heard, in his 
silent shame, Israel gently inveighing against Law. 

. . Law does not exist if you ignore it. Some 
things it can make you do by threats, like paying taxes, 
prevent you from doing, like stealing, but those are not 
the things that matter. The law cannot prevent you 
from living where you choose, very much as you choose; 
you may go cold and hungry and lonely, but those are 
not the penalties of the law, they are the price of your 
entry into true life. The law can’t make you wear 
more than a very little clothes, nor work, nor marry, 
nor abstain from allying freely, nor worship, nor ab- 
stain from worshipping. The law doesn’t matter if 
you’re willing to be a little fish that slips through or 
a big fish that breaks through its net. The law doesn’t 
matter.” 

“ What matters ? ” asked Mr. Thomas, as a little of 
his strength returned. 

“ Custom. Have you ever robbed a railway com- 
pany ? ” 


THE BOMB 


305 


“Mr. Kalisch ...” 

“Travelled without a ticket? Yes? Well, have 
you ever done that in presence of a friend? ” 

“ Really, Mr. Kalisch, I don’t think . . . well, no, 

I . . .” 

“You see! You’ve broken the law when alone, but 
not in presence of a friend. It wouldn’t have looked 
well. It isn’t done, as I think I have heard Jonas say, 
it isn’t done.” 

“ No,” said Mr. Thomas, with asperity, an Antaeus 
suddenly restored to power by the touch on his back of 
the familiar earth. “ It isn’t done. And it never will 
be done as long as humanity is civilised.” He grew a 
little vitriolic. “ Custom is only another name for Law, 
and that is after all what supports the State.” 

Israel did not answer for a while, and Mr. Thomas, 
thinking that he too had knocked down his opponent, 
gave a thought to the Academy picture made up by this 
man and girl. Karsavina gazed raptly at Israel, a 
little too raptly, thought Mr. Thomas, unless they were 
engaged. But he had no chance of speculating as to 
their relation, for Israel answered him at last. 

“ Custom maintains the State? No, Mr. Thomas, 
unless custom be merely habit. For the State is main- 
tained not by popular support, but by popular in- 
ertia.” 

“ My dear sir, of course there’s something in that, I 
quite appreciate your point, but there are positive 
things in the State idea — religion, morality ...” 

“ Morality is social hygiene. State morality is 
social quackery.” 

“ That, within limits, is an admirable idea, Mr. 
Kalisch.” 

“ Hum? ” said Israel. Karsavina looked up quickly. 


306 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


Never before had she heard this angry note in Israel’s 
voice, or seen this glitter in his eyes. Even Mr. 
Thomas felt that the creature did not like the tem- 
pered praise brand of glue, but he found nothing to 
say. 

“ Religion is the same as morality. Religion is mere 
mysticism, which emanates from ignorance. The 
Greeks would have been mystic about a dynamo. Be- 
sides, it is the hope of new life, the refuge of a coward 
who cannot enjoy this. And State religion is just or- 
ganised hypocrisy supported by unorganised cant.” 

“ These are violent words, Mr. Kalisch,” said Mr. 
Thomas, to the assembly rather than to Israel, for 
nobody spoke as Israel delivered his fierce sentences. 
Mr. Thomas’s cherubic mouth and china-blue eyes 
pleaded for the dignities, his deprecating hand smoothed 
his scanty hair as he looked for a suitably qualified 
compliment. He found it; he was used to finding it. 
“ Still, you know, it is quite pleasant to hear a young 
man talk violently; I always think that the young fel- 
low who is no fop at twenty is the man with the un- 
brushed coat-collar at forty. It’s the same In the 
mental realm. Believe me, all this will pass, and you’ll 
be all the better man for being a little wild now.” 

Israel stared at him, then burst out laughing; one 
after the other the group began to laugh too. Mr. 
Thomas looked at them incredulously. He had made 
no joke . . . could they possibly . . . .? The idea 
that they might be laugning at him was ejected from 
his brain. His natural amiability triumphed. 

“ Well,” he said, you seem pleased, all of you. It 
isn’t class war, then? ” 

‘‘ No,” said Israel languidly, “ not with you. You 
come in handy. You go about preaching love, making 


THE BOMB 


307 


the rich soft ; excellent ; go on with soup kitchens, land 
acts, pensions, minimum wages, social consciences, the 
duty of the employer, all that. You make your class 
soft, it won’t be able to fight . . . and when we come 
to grips you’ll see we’ve kept ourselves hard. Bour- 
geois social reform is a boomerang'; the bourgeois think 
to knock us down with it, but it comes back full at 
their faces. Go on teaching the people, and they’ll 
learn to kill you.” 

When a little later Mr. Thomas went down the dark 
stairs with Jonas, he said, “ Thank you for a delight- 
ful evening. Interesting fellows. Still, they don’t 
Really Mean It.” 


CHAPTER II 


THE RANKS CLOSE UP 

Mr. Thomas’s visit proved to be, beyond any doubt, 
the stimulus the more violent members of the Club re- 
quired to drive them to deeds. At last they had seen 
the bourgeoisie, no longer aloof in its universities and 
drawing-rooms, but in their midst, and they had seen 
it as more repellent than a Russian bureaucrat: they 
had seen it kindly, weak, limited and absolutely unin- 
telligent. 

“We are ready,” said Leitmeritz to Israel some min- 
utes after Mr. Thomas had left. 

“ Yes,” said Kalisch, “ now we must make the op- 
portunity.” 

Then they reviewed their forces. The others were 
ready too, and they could be trusted; Karsavina and 
Ekaterina were anxious to fight; Sonia would do what 
Zadoc did, Lydotchka what Ekaterina did; Jonas was 
sound, and as for Perekop, he would obey orders, while 
nobody would ever find out from him anything that an 
ordinary Englishman could understand. It was safe 
to entrust a plot to a man who could not tell it without 
introducing similes where figured flowers and swans and 
ideas for winners. The English would send him to 
Colney Hatch if they talked to him. That left 
Warsch. 

“ Warsch,” said Israel doubtfully. “ He’s diflScult. 
If we tell him anything he will never repeat it. He is 
loyal, and he will never speak even if they beat him and 
play the fire-hose on him as they do to the suffrage 
women. But he is not with us.” 

308 


THE BOMB 309 

“ He must go,” snarled Leitmeritz. “ That’s noth- 
ing, tac, leave it to me.” 

“ Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Leitmeritz.” Israel was a 
changed man since he had seen Mr. Thomas; he was 
now as irritable as he had been angry. ‘‘ Warsch must 
not be removed. He is my old friend and he is loyal. 
But we shall have to leave him out.” 

But if he finds out ? ” 

‘‘ He will not try. He will be glad not to know. 
Of course if I am wrong ...” 

‘‘ Then,” and Leitmeritz cackled with glee, “ I can 
use the knife like an Italian.” 

‘‘ Not yet,” said Israel with decision. “ If the Cause 
is endangered the knife must be used. Let it be used 
on me if the Cause demands it. But, Leitmeritz, be- 
lieve me; do not shed blood until you must. For the 
blood of a man is a beautiful, generous fountain sullied 
by those in authority. We have come to cleanse it, 
not to dry it up.” 

But the Warsch problem, as if some external power 
were clearing away the obstacles from the path to 
action, disappeared that very night. Just as Karsa- 
vina came up to Israel to ask whether she might walk 
with him a little way, Warsch, who had taken no part 
in the baiting of Mr. Thomas, sidled up to him and 
mumbled that he wanted to speak to him, that it was 
. . . wichtig. 

“ Why,” said Kalisch, smiling, “ you’re blushing 
. . . what is it ? Lina ? ” 

‘‘I’ll tell you,” said Warsch hurriedly; the big Ger- 
man turned away his face, which was indeed blushing 
bright pink, he smiled in a stupid, fatuous manner, 
scratched his fair head, worried his scar, showed in 
every way that he was pleased and embarrassed. 


310 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


Half-an-hour later, Israel returned from Chitty 
Street, where he had taken Karsavina after a short 
walk along their Park Lane, Tottenham Court Road. 
He had bought her a bunch of violets, and she had held 
his arm as they walked, looking up at him from time 
to time with glowing blue eyes, murmuring to herself 
her familiar song: “ I love you, love you, Israel, Israel, 
I love you.” He had parted from her quickly on the 
step, ignoring the appeal of the upturned white face 
that begged for his kisses, the clinging of the small 
bare hands ; he was preoccupied and yet pleased, for 
he guessed that Warsch was about to marry Lina, to 
secede from the group so neatly as to make secession 
possible. When he entered his room the candle was 
lit; Warsch sat on the bed. 

“ Well,” said Israel, smiling as he entered, “ so 
you’re going to marry Lina.” 

“ Who told you that ? ” There was no pink in the 
blush this time, it was all proper crimson. 

‘‘You of course.” Israel went up to the big man, 
affectionately laid his hand on the heavy shoulder, 
looked for a moment, as he smiled, at this fine, intelli- 
gent face, the clear blue eyes, the strong, well-shaven 
chin and the scar of martyrdom. “ Dear Warsch,” he 
said, “ I’m glad to think you are to be happy.” 

“ But you are sorry I am to be married,” said 
Warsch aggressively ; “ you think marriage bad, and 
you think I know it is bad, that I’m marrying because 
I’m a weak man, a coward.” 

“ You are in love; it would be natural for you to be 
weak and cowardly, for a man in love is mad. And I 
think it is a happy madness. Some must not marry, 
because they are wild, some may, because they are tame, 
some must because they are feeble. You are one of 


THE BOMB 


311 


those who may. And you are unjust to me if you 
think I am not speaking the truth ; marriage, the free 
grace and celibacy, fit different types. Marriage for 
you, free grace for Leitmeritz, celibacy for me. It’s 
persons who matter, not classes ; all rules are barbar- 
ous because they forget persons. I won’t do that: a 
law for each man, and each man his own law. But 
. . .” Then Israel began to laugh, to shake the 
heavy shoulder on which his hand rested. ‘‘Warsch! 
Warsch! wake up, I’m telling you that you are right 
and your thoughts have run away to Paradise. Listen 
to me, you’ll have time enough to listen to Lina.” 

“ Lina,” said Warsch, moving his lips slowly as if he 
were turning over in his mouth one of Mossel’s best 
chocolates. Lina sometimes stole them for him; the 
big fellow loved sweets as much as tobacco. ‘‘ Yes, I 
am in love with her. I am going to marry her this 
month. Her father has consented, for, you see, he 
did not hate me really, he only wanted to do better for 
Lina. But when Lina seemed to have made up her 
mind he began to give way, and when she began crying 
at meals he was so angry that he nearly turned her out 
of his house, almost told her to go to her Schatz.” 

“ Oh,” said Kalisch, you’re being paid to take her 
away because she’s made his life unbearable.? ” 

“ Not exactly. I might have been later. But some- 
thing happened. He has another small shop in Man- 
chester, which used to belong to his dead brother. 
That was managed by a German woman, who is leaving 
because she is going to be married. So he had to do 
something quickly, and he got the idea of marrying us, 
giving the shop as a Mitgift. It is like a dream.” 

“ Lina. A shop. Yes, Warsch, it is like a dream. 
So 3^ou are going to be an employer, a capitalist.” 


S12 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


‘‘ There is only a boy. I shall have to keep him, I 
suppose.” 

‘‘ Yes, but the shop will either grow or die. If it 
dies it will be hard for Lina; you must make it grow 
. . . and employ more labour.” 

Warsch considered sombrely this aspect of his mar- 
riage. He turned over in his mind the idea of giving 
his men the full produce of their labour, or of sharing 
profits at least, or of paying a wage in excess of the 
trade-union rate, but he had demolished those expedients 
too often. He sighed. 

“ Don’t sigh,” said Israel ; “ you must do what you 
can to be happy. If you must dominate, then domi- 
nate harshly, help us still by driving your men into re- 
volt. The ‘ good ’ employer, from our point of view, 
is not the father of his men ; the ‘ good ’ employer is 
the slave-driver, for in his footsteps popular anger 
treads. Fight for your girl and help the class war. 
And above all be happy.” 

Oh,” and Warsch gave a little tender laugh, deep 
in his throat, “ I’ll be happy with her.” 

The marriage took place a fortnight later. It was, 
for Warsch, a tempestuous time, a time when he ab- 
dicated by his deeds every principle he held. He 
severed, informally but effectively, his connection with 
Little Goodge Street ; he assured Kalisch that he would 
never reveal anything that concerned it, and this, the 
last will and testament of his economic views, was a 
cruel thing to say; then, for three days, he fought 
Mossel, Miss Mossel and Lina together to escape a 
religious service. At last there was a terrible scene, 
during which Warsch thought Lina lost to him, and 
Mossel realised that if Warsch did not yield it would 
be very inconvenient to put an unknown person into the 


THE BOMB 


313 


shop. Lina lay on the couch in the back shop, her hair 
all undone, loudly weeping. 

“ Er liebt mich nicht, er lieht mich nicht,'* she wailed 
every minute. 

“ Nun, Hermann, be sensible, it’s only a formality,” 
pleaded Mossel. 

“ Nein, nein.'* 

“ Hermann, we cannot let Lina go unblessed,” said 
Miss Mossel, who was forty, angular, fierce in defence 
of her forlorn faith, “ you must go to church.” 

“ Neinr 

“ But Hermann . . . She cannot marry an infidel. 
. . .You owe me the respect of a son, Her- 
mann ...” 

And dominating the argument was Lina’s wailing: 
“ Er lieht mich nicht, er liebt mich nichtj* 

The struggle continued; the engagement was main- 
tained by Mossel rather than by the others. At last 
a compromise was arranged. The wedding was to take 
place at St. Marienkirche, in Cleveland Street, the 
parties to wear ordinary clothes, in the presence of not 
more than four persons. Within an hour Lina’s eyes 
were no longer red, her face was pink-and-white, her 
hair was braided again, she laughed, she impetuously 
kissed Warsch in the shop in full view of passers-by. 

Between the compromise and the wedding day, 
Warsch was seized and ground by the two women. 
They threw themselves into organisation, they plotted 
a sex coalition, to make this triumph of woman evident ; 
Warsch was hemmed in, worried with questions. 

‘‘ You don’t count us in the four, of course ” 

“ You can’t, because then we can’t ask Uncle Hein- 
rich of Hornsey.” 

Warsch gave in. Uncle Heinrich was asked; then 


314 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


Mrs. Felsen was invited because she would be insulted 
if Uncle Heinrich were asked and she were left out.‘ 

“ You wouldn’t insult her, would you.? ” said the 
women. 

Warsch gave in. Then cousins followed uncles and 
aunts. And Mossel introduced the bootmaker Pahn, 
who played billiards with him. Lina asked Gladys and 
Muriel, the young ladies from the mercer’s. 

“ It was an accident,” she wailed as Warsch stormed, 
“ it fell out of my mouth.” 

Warsch was asked whether Lina might wear a white 
skirt with the white blouse. He gave in. He promised 
to give her a bouquet of roses. Then the women ex- 
plained that white goes with white. He made it lilies. 
He would have no wedding feast, but Mossel muttered 
“ sandwiches ” to him, and when, later, he saw him 
write out an order for Rudesheimer, he did not protest. 
He was caught, the women had him in the sex-trap, 
they nibbled fragment after fragment from his theories, 
they placed everything before him speciously, they used 
against him his desire to offend nobody, his courtesy, 
his love. Fiercely they worked for the glory of their 
sex. Four days before the wedding they made Mossel 
buy Warsch a frock-coat and a tall hat. On the eve 
of the day, as he kissed Lina good-bye, she drew away 
her lips to whisper to him to get a white button-hole. 

And so Warsch went to his happiness amid all the 
circumstances of ignominy which made public that 
which should have been sacred between two, in his 
frock-coat and white button-hole, standing in front of 
the altar, by the side of this stranger girl in white, 
with a veil and orange blossom on her crimped, vulgar 
curls, he was the object of comment, merriment, ugly 
innuendo. For St. Marienkirche was well filled: Uncle 


THE BOMB 


015 


Heinrich brought his wife, four children and two sis- 
ters ; fourteen persons of the name of Felsen came, one 
of them an old man of ninety in a bath-chair; there 
seemed no end to the Pahns ; Gladys and Muriel brought 
their young gentlemen and several young gentlemen who 
did not belong to them, presumably pour encourager les 
autres. The Kohns came in a body and said “ Amen ” 
in the wrong places with the best of intentions. And 
Jonas could get rid neither of Sarah nor of Esther : the 
women had to see the wedding. For the Club had de- 
cided not to desert Warsch until the last. Except 
Leitmeritz, all attended the ceremony. Perekop, it was 
found later, did right to come, for he backed “ Church- 
warden ” and won eighteen shillings. All kept to- 
gether, except Jonas, who was with his sisters, miser- 
ably thinking of Ethel, fair as Lina, but so much more 
graceful. The Anarchists took no part in the cere- 
mony. They sat in a corner, with folded arms, refused 
to rise, did not reply to the expostulating verger. 
ICalisch was sorrowful, the women faintly excited : 
Sonia, Lydotchka, Ekaterina even, were thrilled. And 
Karsavina slid a little sideways so as to touch Israel 
with her elbow. 

There was no chance of speaking to Warsch as he 
came out of the church, a little ashamed and much re- 
lieved. The torture was almost over. Now he had 
to climb with Lina into the white-flowered carriage 
which was to drive them a hundred yards or so. And 
he had to duck, hold on his hat and close his eyes, as 
his conquerors, adopting the English custom, massed 
at the door to throw into his face the rice and confetti 
of licensed opprobrium. 

He leant back, sighed, took Lina’s white-gloved hand 
and smiled. There was a smack on the back of the 


316 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


carriage as it began to move. The first shoe! There 
would be more when they drove off for the regions of 
Manchester and love. 


n 

“ Poor Hermann,” said Israel. He leant back in the 
rickety chair and crossed his hands under his head. 

“Why poor Hermann.'’” asked Jonas. “Not yet 
poor Hermann; he’s only been married eight hours.” 

“ I don’t say he’s unhappy. But he will be. Her- 
mann is unfortunate; he is able and yet he will not let 
his self be his guide, he always believes in something 
that qualifies. He could not have been happy if Lina 
had followed him in free grace, for he would have 
thought that he wronged her, and he could not have 
done without her, and now he is married he will feel 
guilty of treachery to his ideals.” 

“ That does not matter when one is in love.” 

“No, Jonas. But love is like a bud: it blooms, the 
flower grows, then comes the fruit; the fruit drops off, 
in a few months the branch is bare. There is nothing 
left save room for another love: the first one is dead. 
But Warsch, chained to the tree-trunk, will try to be- 
lieve that the flower is blooming even when the snow 
slowly falls through the dry, black twigs, and he will 
be ashamed because he tries.” 

“ Israel,” said Karsavina suddenly, “ you don’t un- 
derstand.” The girl was sitting on the floor, cross- 
legged, with her eyes fixed upon him. 

“ No,” added Jonas, nervously walking up and down 
the room, “ he doesn’t.” 

Israel smiled. It amused him, the indignation of 


THE BOMB 


317 


these hot, uneasy people; it pleased him to see them 
rise in defence of love, for it rather flattered him to 
realise himself as free from the trammels which held 
them. He was able to look calmly at both, to sym- 
pathise with Jonas in his love of Ethel, which he dared 
not gratify, with Karsavina, in a peculiar, detached 
manner, in her love of him. He felt like a diver who, 
beyond the glass windows of his helmet, can watch with 
interest the affairs of fishes in which he takes no part. 

‘‘ Maybe,” he said tolerantly, “ I am no lover. Or 
rather I love but one idea.” 

Karsavina lowered her eyes; her mouth was quiver- 
ing, the hand which she had mechanically brought 
closer and closer along the boards until it nearly 
touched the leg of Israel’s chair was withdrawn. She 
despised herself for wanting to touch his chair, for 
investing everything he wore, handled, admired, with 
some adorable quality. Through her passionate moods 
ran streaks of hatred: why should this man refuse her.? 
make her less than the Cause.? Was there not room 
for both.? and would his hand be less steady on the red 
da}^ because it had gripped her heart.? Karsavina was 
too prejudiced and too feminine to analyse the man: 
he existed for the Cause, as other men exist for a pro- 
fession, but in her deepest self she thought, as any 
other woman, that he existed for woman, to serve her, 
love her, be her instrument ; her reason said ‘‘ free man, 
free woman,” her instinct said “ master woman, slave 
man.” But she said none of these dishonourable, half- 
elucidated things; she thought herself too deeply at- 
tached to the Revolutionary Cause to discuss them with 
herself. She knew they were there, as a believer some- 
times knows that doubt lurks behind his faith, but she 
would, like the believer, have thought it sacrilegious to 


318 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


voice these ideas. She did not deliberately blind her- 
self to the truth, but she chose to remain blind to it. 
So, gravely and generally, as soon as she had re- 
covered from the shock of Israel’s words : “ I am no 
lover,” she talked to him, no longer of love, but of any- 
thing that came into her head, of Leitmeritz’s attitude 
towards Sonia, of the long hours she worked at the 
tailor’s. She even abandoned Israel, turned to Jonas, 
asked him how he was getting on at the Academy. 

“Oh, all right,” said Jonas sulkily, “work is work, 
and there’s an end of it. All work is beastly, it does 
not matter what it is.” 

“ Yes,” said Karsavina, “ work is beastly. If it is 
not beastly it ceases to be work. It won’t be work 
when you’re Headmaster of Rugby.” 

Jonas laughed sharply. Fool that he had once 
been to mention Rugby. “ Rugby ! Ah, yes. That 
wouldn’t be so beastly. But that’s all over. I’ve 

taken the wrong road. I don’t know why. It’s too 
late for me and Rugby: I couldn’t live there; I’d have 
to slip revolt for the sons of the rich into every 

theorem. No, it’s too late for me; I’ve grown too 

much. If I could marry, have a son, send him to a 
public school, see that he changed his name, was 

ashamed of his father and watched the course of a 
cricket-ball with greater interest than the development 
of a cycloid, something might be marred of him. But 
I can’t. I’m like one of those men in ‘ Kipps,’ like a 
rat in a drainpipe, along which I must crawl until I 
die.” 

Nobody took up the task of consolation, and Jonas, 
saying no more, resigned himself to his familiar obses- 
sion of Ethel the unattainable, her milk-white skin, her 
fair hair, her hand, delicate as a spray of fern. He 


THE BOMB 


319 


was ready, Jonas, because the earth seemed to promise 
him nothing; like Karsavina he welcomed any adven- 
ture, because daily life seemed to hold none for him. 
Thus it was in a concentrated mood that he greeted 
Leitmeritz, then Ekaterina and Lydotchka. Very 
quickly the conversation grew precise. They looked 
at one another with an excited, disturbed air, which 
said: “ IVe aren’t here to discuss Warsch, are we?” 
Quite suddenly the pause came, when all were seated 
round the table. The two guttering candles, stuck on 
a dirty copy of The Torch, flamed up and down, whiten- 
ing their faces, deepening their eyes. Every face but 
one wore an intense expression, even Lydotchka’s, for 
she copied Ekaterina’s ; Israel alone seemed undis- 
turbed, stroked his red beard thoughtfully. At last 
Ekaterina spoke. 

“Well?” she said aggressively. There was no 
reply. She slid her hands forward, examined her 
finger-nails by the light of the candles. “Well? Are 
we going to decide?” 

“ We have decided,” said Leitmeritz. The Pole 
threw back his long black hair, smiled; never had his 
wrinkles seemed so deep. Nobody contradicted him. 
“ Yes, we have decided. We have had no talk of it, 
but we have all decided in our hearts. Is that not so, 
Ekaterina Viktorovna?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then all that need be done is to select the offender. 
There are many to choose from in this country: royal 
family, ministers, chief of police, prelates.” 

“ A pity we cannot kill them all,” said Ekaterina. 

“ Tac, that would be too good. No, we must choose, 
one by one.” 

“ The bigger the better.” 


320 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


“ Tac, that is well spoken, Galgensteln.” Leit- 
meritz looked at the. young man with some surprise. 
That he should prove more violent than his fellows was 
singular. Leitmeritz was not subtle, could not trace 
the connection that existed between Galgenstein’s des- 
perate anger and his baffled love, though he knew of 
it, but he accepted the offering. 

“ The bigger the better,” repeated Leitmeritz signif- 
icantly. 

There was a pause. Then Kalisch intervened. 

“ I do not like the removal of kings and ministers,” 
he said, it does not mean anything now. It would 
have been worth while to remove Napoleon, or Ivan the 
Terrible, or Louis XI, but to destroy gentlemen in frock 
coats who do nothing in the world except what they 
are told to do is not attacking authority.” 

“ What,” cried Ekaterina, “ you cast off Luccheni 
and ...” 

“ I cast off nobody. When Luccheni removed Eliza- 
beth of Austria, when Bresci removed Humbert, these 
great sons of Ryssakoff and Orsini struck for free- 
dom the blows they individually thought right. But 
my belief is not entirely their belief, and times have 
changed. Capitalism nowadays, rather than royalty, 
broods over us ; it was already so in ’92, when Ravachol 
was working, but less so. Every day now aristocracy 
is less and plutocracy is more; besides we have little 
to tear from aristocracy, we have won civil rights, most 
of them, and the bourgeois will give the rest because 
they must bid for votes. But we can tear a great deal 
from capital, because capital has everything. No 
king, then, say I, or king’s minister, chaplain or hire- 
ling, but the real master, the rich man.” 

“ Kill the rich, others will rise,” said Ekaterina. 


THE BOMB Sn 

‘‘ That argument was used against you, Ekaterina 
Viktorovna, when you fired at Pobiedonostzeff.” 

There was a silence, Ekaterina having been convicted 
of bad logic. For half-an-hour the discussion con- 
tinued, rather half-hearted on the part of Leitmeritz 
and Ekaterina who, with the docile Lydotchka, formed 
the orthodox Terrorist section. Karsavina said noth- 
ing ; she watched her beloved with glowing eyes, soothed 
by his repose, then stirred by his fire, ready to advance 
or recede with him. Jonas at last joined with Kalisch. 
He had been a Socialist before he became an Anarchist ; 
the economic view was rooted deeper in him than the 
political. 

“ Yes,” he said, “ comrade Kalisch is right. Strike 
at capital, strike fear into it and it will yield on hours, 
wages, weaken itself in advance of the day when the 
workers will capture it.” 

“Well, who’s the man.?” said Leitmeritz ungraci- 
ously. 

“ There are many capitalists. Cotton, iron, ship- 
ping, banking, each have their master. Some are 
peers.” 

“ A peer would be best,” said Ekaterina, reconciled 
to the idea by her ancient hatred of titles. 

“ Yes, a peer who is a great capitalist,” said Ly- 
dotchka. She smiled prettily as she looked at Jonas 
and added for him the glance that meant “ Don’t you 
love me a little.? ” 

A number of names were discussed, three retained; 
then one withdrawn, for the capitalist lived in the 
Midlands. 

“ We must strike here,” said Israel, “ where capital 
is most insolent. Besides, that which happens in Lon- 
don happens twice over. It is so well advertised.” 


322 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


They could not come to a definite decision. A few 
days would clear their minds they knew, for there was 
no hesitation among them. The risks of the adventure 
were not very great, for Anarchist outrage was un- 
known in England ; they would have to cope with 
naught save the ordinary police. It was agreed that 
the name should be decided upon two nights later. 

“ Then,” said Israel, smiling, ‘‘ let us think of other 
things, of the sun and the dry, white beds of streams 
and of the scents the east wind carries from Babylon to 
the inner sea. Or rather, no, do not think. Let me 
play to you, tunes without measure or end, tunes that 
are born and die without a herald, as a flight of storks 
rises from a marsh, circles and alights on the spot from 
which it rose.” 

“ Yes, play to us, Israel,” whispered Karsavina. 

Israel took up his violin, began to play very softly 
tunes which he improvised. At first his audience was 
careless ; Ekaterina trimmed her finger-nails, while Leit- 
meritz lit cigarette after cigarette. But as the music 
became softer, more melancholic, respect stole upon 
them ; Ekaterina put down her file, Leitmeritz held up 
a match and hesitated to strike it. Jonas, from the be- 
ginning, had listened, his face in his hands, while Kar- 
savina, crouching on the floor, looked up fascinated at 
her hero. 

Israel played on, careless of his effect, secure of it, 
perhaps. His violin yielded him faint melodies, muffled 
deep rhythms, and voices like those of distant children. 
The melodies rose and fell interminably, monotonous, 
never resolving themselves, but ever changing into other 
melodies governed by naught save the rhythm. It was 
primitive music, music he had never heard, music older 
than the gamut; it was a song such as the croonings 


THE BOMB 


323 


with which mothers by the Nile had for five thousand 
years coaxed their brown children to sleep. It sprang 
from him, from his dead fathers; it was all new to him 
save a fragment which he hummed as he played — 

“ Aie — ee — aie — ee — eeee -r- eeee 
Aieeee — aie — ee — eeee — eeee — ee.*’ 

It was a soft, sorrowful tune he had heard a Ser- 
vian murmur to his bear, and as he played he could 
see the dark, black-bearded face, its deep grey eyes, 
and the fascinated beast awkwardly swaying on its 
heavy paws. 

The silence was complete round him. It was late, 
there was no sound from the street below. He stood 
as if alone in the feeble light of the candles, which 
shone on his copper locks ; he played, lost in the end- 
less languor of the East, his nostrils full of aromatic 
scents and all his body bathed in balm. And still the 
monotonous melody unrolled about him, like a golden 
coil from an invisible drum. It unrolled, sometimes 
crude and garish, fierce and then tender, tyrannous and 
imploring, and never did it seem to end. For that old- 
est, secret melody could not end, it was the pageant 
of the East. 

Israel stopped, looked at his hearers as if surprised. 
Nobody spoke. Karsavina’s face was now between her 
hands, and upon her fingers shone the moist stains of 
tears. 


III 

There was a knocking at Israel’s door. He heard it 
faintly in his half-sleep, wondered whether it was at his 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


door they were knocking, or at Warsch’s, or Schund’s. 
He forgot then that these had vanished. It was so 
early that his mind was not working, that everything 
had for him an equal value: the noises in Cleveland 
Street, the knocking and, far below him, the high voice 
of Cazot who sang, as he got up to finish an urgent 
job, one of his pre-Entente songs — 

Diggle-diggle-dum, 

Avec ses balles dum-dum, 

Qui est-ce qui fait une sale cafetiere? 
Diggle-diggle-dum, 

Avec ses balles dum-dum, 

C’est la reine d’Angleterre.” 

At last he opened his eyes, sat up in bed, called out 
thickly — 

“ Who’s that ? ” 

“Karsavina. May I come in?” 

“ Come in.” Israel never locked his door. Why lock 
it? The door was thrown open, Karsavina slammed it, 
ran up to the bed and threw herself on her knees by its 
side. She was excited, out of breath as if she had run, 
and her hair was loose. 

“ Well? ” said Israel coolly. “ What time is it? ” 

“ Half-past six, but never mind ; listen, Israel, I’ve 
found the man to remove,” Karsavina gabbled. 

“ Oh? Then give me my coat.” Israel drew it over 
his shirt, baring as he did so his thick white neck ; but, 
for the first time, she did not notice it. “ Well, who 
is it ? ” 

“ Galgenstein.” 

“ Galgenstein ? What do you mean ? ” 

“ Oh, not Jonas, the other, the American millionaire, 
Reuben Galgenstein. Surely you’ve heard of him.” 


THE BOMB 


“Yes . . , that man . . . the lucifer king they call 
him, a good name. There’s a strike against his trust, 
isn’t there?” 

“ Yes, that man; but, Israel, you don’t seem to know, 
the strike is not for pay; it is to make him use red 
phosphorus instead of white, to stop that disease, an 
awful disease. I forget the name.” 

“ Necrosis,” said Israel. He looked away from the 
girl’s anxious face. “ Yes, necrosis ; they call it phossy 
jaw here. That’s it. A dreadful thing. The poison 
gets into every nerve, then into the bones; the skin 
peels, the flesh rots, the bones, especially the jawbones, 
crack, break, splinter, become pulp.” 

“ Ah,” Karsavina muttered, her hands against her 
mouth. 

“ All that because it costs a few cents a pound to 
convert white into red. Yes, that man should be re- 
moved. But, Karsavina, we’re not in the States.” 

“ He will be here this week. I did not think of it 
last night, but somebody brought a paper into the shop 
yesterday afternoon. See.” 

Israel took a crumpled cutting from her, began to 
read it. “ Read it aloud,” Karsavina whispered. 

“ ‘ The phosphorus strike, which is still in progress 
in the flve states where are located the works of the 
Galgcnstein Lucifer Match Company, has led to un- 
pleasant incidents in the vicinity of Mr. Reuben Gal- 
genstein’s palatial residence in Fifth Avenue. A parade 
of strikers, men and girls, was planned to take place 
under his windows, a painful feature of the demonstra- 
tion being that it was exclusively composed of persons 
afflicted with industrial disease alleged to be due to the 
process employed in Mr. Galgenstein’s works. Order 
was promptly restored by the police, and a few arrests 


326 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


were effected. We understand that Mr. Galgenstein, 
who is greatly distressed by the occurrence and is en- 
tirely willing to abide by the decision of any experts 
who may be appointed by the United States Government, 
sails to-morrow on board the Oceanic for London, where 
he is called by pressing business engagements.’ ” 

“ Pressing business ! ” said Karsavina, with a laugh. 
“ That means that even in America he dares not face 
it.” 

“ He could,” replied Kalisch. “ They will do noth- 
ing Congress will pass a dummy bill, and when the 
disease goes on people will say the workers are care- 
less. Yes, Karsavina, that’s a good man, for London 
will notice him. London is sentimental, and every Eng- 
lishwoman over thirty loves to read about disease. In 
a week there will be more people who know Galgenstein 
than there are now who know Rockefeller. We will dis- 
cuss it. But now I will get up, and you can break- 
fast with me.” 

Karsavina stood with her head and shoulders out of 
the window while Israel moistened his face and hands 
and put on his clothes. In less than ten minutes he 
was ready and standing by her side, combing his thick 
hair with his fingers. He was gay, young, and she, in 
her excitement, laughed at nothing as he set out a 
meal of brown bread and onions, together with some 
coffee, for he now had a spirit-lamp. They chattered 
like children, of the light of the morning sun on the 
houses opposite, of Warsch, who might at last own a 
bird in a cage, of Sonia and Leitmeritz and their hos- 
tile affection. Their nervousness turned to merriment. 

But there was no merriment when, two nights later, 
the group met at Little Goodge Street to fix on “ the 
name.” There was practically no discussion. Sonia 


THE BOMB 


327 


calmly sat through the whole evening putting a new 
seat into her Zadoc’s trousers, while Ekaterina and 
Leitmeritz were willing to kill anybody, and Lydotchka 
to approve of their action. When Perekop and Jonas 
arrived there was nothing to be done except to inform 
them of the decision and to ask for their approval as 
a matter of form. 

Perekop nodded, sat down and began to think of an 
obviously more important matter, but Jonas remained 
standing with lowered eyes and hands clenched so tight 
that the knuckles showed white through the brown skin. 

“ Galgenstein,” he said at last in a low, hoarse voice. 

“ Yes. You agree, I suppose, since I’ve told you 
about the phosphorus,” said Kalisch. 

Jonas did not reply. He had now fixed his upper 
upon his lower molars, he dared not unlock them, for 
he feared that he would shout something incoherent. 

“ But . . .” said Kalisch at last. He looked at him 
curiously, found that all the others were looking at him 
too. Never had he seen such an expression in a human 
face. The jawbones were salient right and left, show- 
ing that they were compressed, the mouth was tight, 
drawn into a line and dirty white ; between the eyes was 
a knot of furrows. This was more than excitement, it 
was something personal. 

“ Jonas,” said Kalisch at length, “ what’s the mat- 
ter.? This Reuben Galgenstein, you don’t know him? 
He’s not a relation? ” 

Jonas suddenly looked at him. Never before had 
Israel seen such conflict in human eyes. There was wild 
excitement there, and anger, and fear, but over all 
there was a solidity of pain. 

At last Jonas spoke: “A relative? No . . . not 
quite . . .” 


ms 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


“Not quite?” 

“ I don’t know ... we always thought in our family 
. . . my father always read about him in the papers. 
. . . Ah, don’t make me say these things ! ” 

Jonas had ended in a muffled scream, seized his chin 
with both hands. He was mad with some superstitious 
fear and ashamed because he was thus affected. 

“What matters if it were your brother?” asked 
Ekaterina roughly. 

“ A brother is nothing by the side of the Cause,” 
said Lydotchka, with her sweet, baby smile. 

There was a silence. Then Jonas muttered — 

“ Quite true. I agree.” 

“ Jonas,” said Kalisch gently, “ you do believe that 
father, mother, son, all those things are words? You 
serve the Cause?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then . . . but, no, you are a free man. You shall 
not be coerced. You shall have no hand in it. You 
shall not draw.” 

There was a hubbub. 

“ Why should he not draw? ” cried Lydotchka. 
“He agrees. Let him draw.” 

The little girl was angry ; she could not bear to think 
that this man whom she worshipped in silence should 
not have as good a chance of glory as the others. For 
one moment she possessed personality. 

“ Silence, Lydotchka,” said Ekaterina fiercely. “ He 
need not draw. I am ready to do it.” 

“ And I,” snarled Leitmeritz, “ it will be pleasure, 
tac.” 

“ No, he shall not draw,” said Kalisch, “ it is wrong.” 

“ I shall draw,” shouted Jonas. Then he faced them 
all. A wild fury bubbled in his veins. Family, tradi- 


THE BOMB 


tion, all this nonsense, was it going to hold him for 
ever? No. He would draw, and if he drew the lot he 
would do it. “I shall draw,” he shouted again, 
shall, I shaU.” 

“ Good,” said Leitmeritz at last. 

Comrade, you are worthy,” said Ekaterina. 

Little Lydotchka shyly put her hand upon his arm, 
looked up into his brown face. 

“ You are a hero,” she whispered. 

Jonas looked miserably at the blue eyes and fair 
hair that reminded him of Ethel, absently pressed the 
small white hand. 

“ Well,” said Israel, with a sigh, let him draw.” 
Then he sat down on the floor by Karsavina’s side. 
Soon Leitmeritz and Ekaterina came to stand beside 
them to discuss the plan of action, while Jonas, sitting 
a few feet away in the arm-chair, seemed to listen to 
them. At first he tried to do so, to interest himself 
in the method that was to be applied. He vaguely 
heard the names of Caserio, of Passanante, but his 
thoughts moved away from the scene towards a slim, 
fair girl with deep blue eyes, too large for her small, 
^hite face. Ethel! And it was all over. Jonas lost 
all consciousness of the group as he recited to himself 
a sentence in her letter which he could not forget: 
“ . . . Perhaps then, as you cannot bring yourself 
to go against your people, we had better stop as we 
are. We can always be friends.” He had read that 
sentence blankly and again and again, amazed because 
it did not crush him; he had wanted to cry out, to 
weep, to shout that this should not be, that he would 
cut loose from his father, marry this girl who would 
bravely have followed him. He had not been able to 
do so. He had realised himself as a coward. He had 


330 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


tried coldly to ask himself why it was that all these 
strangers, his father, his mother, Sarah, Esther, the 
Fegers, mattered more than the girl he loved. He was 
sure they did not matter more, and yet they did. He 
could not answer his own question. He remained in 
presence of the thing he loved and was powerless to 
take it, for a reason he could not fathom; he was 
faintly conscious of the weight upon him of tradition 
and heredity, of the eternal custom of Jewish subserv- 
ience of the son to the father. He shuddered as he 
thought that even he, Jonas Galgenstein, Anarchist, 
Cambridgeman, unbeliever, dared not mate with the un- 
clean Gentile. 

He heard them talking again. Apparently they 
were agreed upon a bomb, discussing a book which Leit- 
meritz held open. The word sprengstoff recurred again 
and again. Well, so be it, let it be he who threw the 
bomb. He would throw it true enough, and he would 
not try to escape: the Law would then end his troubles. 
A fine way of dying, thought Jonas, to die for an idea, 
even when one is inspired to the deed by little save de- 
spair. In such despair one might well shed the blood 
of one’s own tribe. His thoughts took another turn: 
Could he kill his father for the Cause.? A devilish idea 
formed in his mind: if his father were dead his mother 
would yield, he could marry the girl. He shuddered, 
and the reaction drove him against the task that might 
be his, to shed the blood of a Galgenstein. His reason 
and his instincts gripped at one another, rolled over 
one another, and he gasped under the stress. He 
hardly heard Israel as he broke a sudden silence — 

‘‘We are agreed, then.? There is nothing to do but 
to draw. Have you the balls, Leltmerltz?” 

Leitmerltz opened a cigarette-tin and dropped on the 


THE BOMB 


331 


table about a dozen dark-blue marbles, among which 
was one white one. Jonas heard the sharp sound, 
became more self-conscious. His heart began to 
beat. 

“Sonia, my hat,” said Leitmeritz sharply. “Now, 
how do we draw.?^ — one, two, three ... we are 
eight.” 

“ No, Sonia does not draw,” said Israel, “ nor 
Perekop.” 

Perekop showed no sign of interest, but Sonia pro- 
tested. 

“ Why should I not draw ? I can throw a couple of 
pounds of stuff.” 

“ No,” said Leitmeritz, “ you shan’t. Kalisch is 
right. You would miss him, curse you. What’s the 
good of you? ” 

“ How you do talk, Zadoc,” said Sonia placidly, and 
returned to the trousers. 

“ And Lydotchka does not draw,” said Ekaterina. 
“ She cannot throw even a tennis-ball.” 

Little Lydotchka looked incredulously at her friend, 
then burst into tears. “ I wanted to throw it, I wanted 
to,” she sobbed ; “ it would have been so splendid, such 
. . .” Words failed her until the slang of a school-boy 
friend flew ready to her Russian tongue — . . such 

a rag,” she wailed. 

“ Silence, little fool,” said Ekaterina. “ You will 
find another rag.” 

“ Then,” said Leitmeritz, “ we are five. I, Ekaterina 
Viktorovna, you, comrade Galgenstein, and Kalisch 
and . . . and . . .” 

“ Yes, I too,” said Karsavina quickly. Her blue 
eyes gleamed, but she threw Israel a shy look as if to 
ask his leave. He did not speak, and it thrilled her 


332 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


that he should thus honour her when Sonia, Perekop 
and Lydotchka were excluded. 

Leitmeritz put into the hat four blue marbles and 
the white, and shook the hat. Jonas wondered whether 
the sharp click-click would ever end. The Pole was 
smiling with hideous glee as he held out the hat and its 
burden. 

“ You know the way. He who draws the white is a 
hero. His name shall live for a thousand years. Here, 
Perekop, take it. Sonia, put out the candles and light 
them again when I tell you to. And draw the curtain 
over the window.” 

Perekop took the hat, leaned against the table in the 
midst of the five, while Sonia drew the curtain and 
placed the candles on the edge of the table. There 
was a pause, disturbed by nothing save Lydotchka’s 
sobs. 

“ Now,” said Leitmeritz hoarsely. 

Sonia blew out the lights. In complete darkness the 
hands were plunged into the hat, awkward, pursuing 
the marbles along the soft stuff. Leitmeritz recognised 
Ekaterina’s beautiful fingers and gave them a playful 
nip, while Karsavina trembled as she touched Israel’s 
firm hand. Then the hat was empty. 

“Have you all a marble asked Leitmeritz. Sev- 
eral voices answered “ Yes.” “ Then, Sonia, light the 
candles.” 

It took her a little longer than usual to strike the 
match, for her hands were unsteady. Then, with 
Lydotchka, she joined the group. 

“ Pska Icreffy^* said Leitmeritz angrily, as he flung 
down his dark ball. 

“ Unfortunate that I am,” said Ekaterina. 

Karsavina and Israel said nothing, but laid their 


THE BOMB 


333 


dark balls upon the table. Then all looked at Jonas, 
who was gripping the chair-back with one hand. In 
the palm of the other lay the white ball. 

Little Lydotchka joined both hands together, and 
cried out — 

“ Hero, hero, it is he.” Then, with a wild scream of * 
laughter, she flung both arms round his neck and kissed 
him. Her delight was infectious, even Leitmeritz 
growled that he wished him success, while Karsavina 
and Ekaterina in turn kissed him on cheeks and mouth, 
and Israel caressingly laid his hand upon his shoulder. 

Suddenly the group found that Jonas was not re- 
sponding. He had not spoken, not moved; he had re- 
ceived the kisses without even changing his attitude. 
He still stood, one hand upon the chair-back, the other 
outstretched and carrying the white ball. They were 
disturbed, afraid. 

“ Jonas Galgenstein,” Karsavina whispered. 

Slowly Jonas turned towards her, closing his hand 
upon the white ball. He did not speak, but though she 
did not understand, she saw in the man’s eyes that he 
was in agony. 

“ He ... he won’t . . .” she gasped. And, as she 
spoke, Galgenstein moved, threw out both hands and 
fell face forward on the floor. Nobody touched him. 
He had not fainted, though; he spoke — 

“ No, no . . . no, no ... I can’t, I can’t . . . it’s 
to much. . . . Anybody, not Reuben Galgenstein . . . 
no, no ... I can’t. . . .” 

Then Israel bent down, seized his hand, wrenched it 
open and took the white ball. The hand did not close 
again; Jonas had fainted. 

Ostentatiously the group turned away from him. 

“ What is to be done ? ” asked Ekaterina. 


334 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


‘‘ Kill him. He is not safe. We must not take risks, 
tac.” 

“ No, Leitmeritz,” said Israel, ‘‘ he shall not be killed. 
He is safe. At any rate I take the risk.” 

“You? How?” 

“ I shall remove Reuben Galgenstein.” 

Leitmeritz and Ekaterina burst into protests. Both 
were eager for glory, both eager to kill. But Israel 
faced them with clenched hands and shining eyes. 

“ I took the white ball. I took the lot he had drawn. 
Besides, my mind is made up. Are you going to oppose 
Me?” 

Leitmeritz hesitated, awed by the passion in Israel’s 
voice, then shrugged his shoulders in assent. Karsavina 
went up to Israel and, silently taking his arm, drew it 
close against her. Meanwhile Lydotchka had thrown 
herself on her knees by Jonas’s side ; she bathed his face 
with a wet handkerchief, but not tenderly ; she slapped it 
with the linen, weeping all the while over this dishonoured 
creature, and, as she wept, broken Russian insults es- 
caped her. 

“ Cur, cur . . .” she whispered, , . thing lower 
than a pig. . . .” 

Jonas was recovering. He opened his eyes, looked 
vacantly at the group. Lydotchka dragged him up into 
a sitting posture, placed his back against the leg of the 
table and turned away with a gesture of contempt. For 
five minutes Jonas remained thus in the midst of the 
group, eyes lowered now, as he remembered. At last he 
tried to rise. Leitmeritz roughly stood him on his feet 
and, for a while, he remained thus, swaying a little. 

“ Galgenstein,” said Israel gently, “ there is nothing 
more to be said. You have failed us. I am sorry. 
You will, I know, keep faith with us. You will not re- 


THE BOMB 335 

veal what you have seen. Do not grieve, dear friend, 
all men cannot carry mountains. Good-bye.” 

Sonia opened the door. Jonas looked at each of the 
group in turn. Ekaterina gave him his hat. He took 
it. Soon they could hear his heavy footsteps, uncer- 
tain still, upon the dark stairs. 

IV 

Jonas Galgenstein staggered through little streets 
into the Tottenham Court Road. Passers-by thought 
he was drunk and did not notice him. The traffic 
stopped for him in Oxford Street. At Trafalgar 
Square he collapsed against the parapet. A police- 
man, who did not care to lock him up, searched him, 
found his card and, as he had a few shillings in his 
pocket, handed him over to a cabman. The night air 
did not clear his mind, but restored to him a mechanical 
capacity; thus he found his key, managed to enter his 
bedroom without waking his family. 

He sat upon the bed trying to think, disturbed all 
the time by the sight of his two razors, which shone 
white in the moonlight upon the oak dressing-table. 
‘‘ Ethel was giving him up, of course . . . she would 
. . . she couldn’t do otherwise . . . how white those 
razors were . . . and he had failed the Cause ... he 
ought not to have failed . . . but Reuben Galgenstein 
. . . no, no, not that . . . there was nothing left . . • 
nothing to fight for . . . and he could not fight . • • 
there were the razors. . . .” 

He stood up, full of calm purpose, took up one of the 
razors, turned the mirror so that it caught the moon- 
light, reflected his dim shape. With a firm hand he felt 
his throat. 


SS6 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


“ Now, no mistake,” he muttered; then, as if repeat- 
ing a lesson, “ You must not saw at the windpipe. You 
must sever the jugular vein and, if you can, the 
carotid.” 

He felt very little pain as he fell, not more than a hot 
stinging on the left side of his throat. 

V 

In the early morning the women of the household sat 
silently in the dining-room. The body lay with its neck 
swathed in clean white bandages, its chin high in the air. 
They had laid it upon the table according to the custom 
of their race. 


CHAPTER III 


THE BOMB 

I 

“ He was not strong enough,” said Israel sadly, “ that 
is why he died.” 

“ Yes,” said Karsavina, “ he was not strong enough.” 

She threw a glance at Kalisch, who sat hunched up on 
the floor of his room, vacuously staring at the blue and 
yellow paper that he hated, and as she took in detail 
after detail of her beloved — his broad, white hands, his 
long, thick limbs, his blue eyes under the heavy red 
brows — she exulted because he was strong, stood colos- 
sal among pigmies. He did not look at her. A slow, 
rhythmic movement swung his body from right to left; 
he seemed absorbed in the tragedy. 

“ He was not strong enough,” he repeated, ‘‘ he had 
no right to live. He loved a woman and had not the 
courage, for her sake, to face the world and his people, 
though he was armed with education and money. He 
was not strong enough to escape his tribe’s black tents. 
And he was not strong enough to bear his shame.” 

“ Oh,” said Karsavina a little breathlessly, “ he could 
not bear such shame. He had to die.” 

No,” Israel looked at Karsavina, her sparkling blue 
eyes, at the intense hands that gripped her ash-flaxen 
hair. “ No, extremist, ultra that you are. One can be 
strong enough to bear shame. It is sometimes easier 
to bear shame than hunger, for one can tell oneself that 
there is no shame, that the scoffers are fools, while there 
is no arguing with stomachs. Even a strong man may, 
accidentally, be led into the ways of shame, but he may 
337 


338 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


be strong enough to follow them, perhaps to glory. 
But Jonas was not strong, he could not fight. His in- 
tellect was more willing than his spirit, but without the 
spirit it could not fight. Because he did not clearly see 
the battle of life, the struggle for love, for self-develop- 
ment, for the right, he went blind into the whirlpools 
of contest. He was drowned.” 

“ True,” said Karsavina, after a while, “ the price of 
life is contest, the reward of peace is death.” 

She lay down upon the bed, her eyes, fixed upon the 
ceiling, watched the trembling upon it of the light from 
the candle as it flickered in the draught. It was late, 
but she did not think of leaving; she was absorbed in 
meditations which she would have found it difficult to 
frame in words. She imagined the world as a vast cock- 
pit where the struggle raged all the time; she saw men 
and women ranged against one another for mutual con- 
quest, and men banded together to exploit their fellows, 
the poor banded together to resist the rich. She thought 
of individuals striving to tear from the community more 
than their due, of men and women tumbling over one 
another, working, lying, stabbing for mere existence 
and for that little more which turns existence into life. 
It did not frighten her, this contest, it braced her ; the 
idea of it made her blood tingle. She was young, ready. 
But she suspected sterility in the gospel : to struggle was 
good, but the struggle must be for a prize. 

“ Israel,” she said, “ the contest must be for some- 
thing.” 

Yes, for life, for peace, for beauty.” 

“ For everything that makes life joyful. You have 
read Sanin, by ArtzybachefF.” 

“ No, I do not read Russian, you know, but I have 
been told what Sanin thought, and it is true.” 


THE BOMB 


339 


“ Then,” said Karsavina excitedly, ‘‘ then you too 
believe in Sanin? Not only in courage and freedom, but 
pleasure, so much as life will give ? ” 

There was a fever in her eyes. If Israel could truly 
believe with Sanin that pleasure was almost a duty she 
might win him yet. It outraged her to think that she 
might achieve by converting his mind that which she 
could not achieve by sheer seduction, but she knew from 
her own taut nerves that she was above such niceties, that 
her passion did not dwell on details. If only she could 
gain her beloved she cared not what was the price of her 
victory. But Israel disappointed her. After some 
time he said — 

“ Yes, I believe with Sanin in hunting pleasure as 
the dog does the fox, but what I believe for others is 
not always what I believe for myself. I do not even 
believe it for all, I believe it for most ; it does not count 
for me.” 

Karsavina had unconsciously held out both hands 
towards him ; as he spoke they twitched with agitation. 
Pie did not look at them. 

“ I am not,” he summed up, “ a man to whom pleasure 
matters.” 

Karsavina drew back her hands, covered her eyes, for 
they had suddenly swelled with tears. For a long 
time Israel spoke, and she hardly listened to him, so 
helpless did she find herself in the presence of his as- 
ceticism. The aloofness of it appalled her: he was a 
knight about to sally out against the world, but he 
would bear no colours. He was a knight, not her 
knight. 

“ The Cause,” he said, “ has worked its will with us. 
It has purified and strengthened each of us as- it puri- 
fied our association. It has marched towards its end, 


S40 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


unswerving and pitiless, it has swept away obstacles. 
I am its servant, Karsavina, I am its embodiment, I 
can be naught that it is not. The force has driven the 
weak and the unfit from its path; it has sent Schund 
into prison, so that his folly might not jeopardise its 
triumph; it has bound Warsch in marriage, so that he 
might not serve it ill ; it has killed Jonas, because Jonas 
unworthy was dangerous. It has retained none hut 
those who dare; you, and Leitmeritz, and Ekaterina, 
and also those who, without daring, will obey and keep 
faith. It has no use for the others. When I have 
done my work it will discard me. And so we mould a 
finer world for those who come.” 

Karsavina raised her wet eyes, looked at him with a 
new-born fear in her eyes. For the first time she real- 
ised that, within a few days, this man would face 
Society without a weapon, that he was going to his 
death. This struck terror in her. 

“ Israel,” she whispered hoarsely, and held out her 
hands, “ I cannot bear ...” 

He smiled, took the outstretched hands. His firm 
grasp did not comfort her, it distracted her. She was 
not touching the hands of a hero, but those of a man 
she loved beyond all words. With a sense of treachery 
she felt impelled to beg him to give up the adventure 
* . . she had to say it. . . . 

“Israel . . . must you do it?” The terrible 
phrase had broken its bonds. 

She suddenly found that she could speak freely. 
“Must you? Must you? Is it any use?” 

Unconsciously she pulled at his hands; he slid for- 
ward until her fingers touched his cheek. He did not 
reply: she coiled one arm round his neck. 

“Must you? Must you? After the tyrant will 


THE BOMB 


341 


rise another tyrant . . . and you, Israel, ch, I’m 
afraid, I’m so afraid. If they arrest you, Israel, they 
will . . . kill you. ... I can’t, I can’t bear it. 
You must live, you must, live for the world and its 
beauty, for youth and its power, for love . . . for 
me . . .” 

She bent over him, her loose hair fell over his heavy 
red locks ; Karsavina murmured almost in his ear — 

“ I love you, Israel, I love you . . . you are the 
flower that has grown in the wilderness of my heart, 
you are the master of my soul, and I love you, and I 
love you, for you have made me love, given me the 
priceless gift. And . . . oh . . .” 

She paused. Israel looked up into her eyes without 
speaking. He felt as he had never felt before ; through 
the steady purpose in him he found that there intruded 
a weak but threatening desire. He wanted to answer, 
he could not, and still the soft voice poured into his 
ears a delicious narcotic. 

“ I love you, because you are king of me and king 
of men . . . because you ride life as the great birds 
do the storm. And . . . oh, Israel, I love you, for 
you are beautiful. Your eyes are not blue, or grey 
or green, or of a colour I can name; they are of a 
colour of things, of the flowers that grow among the 
corn and of those faint ones that cluster by the banks 
of streams. Your mouth is not scarlet, or purple or 
crimson; it is like the skin of a ripe cherry, the bleed- 
ing body of a split pomegranate. And your hair, oh, 
Israel, it is not red or auburn ; it is not to be touched 
by words : it is like a torch in the night, like the heart 
of the rainbow. ...” 

He shivered as the Eastern imagery fell upon him, 
first glowing, then soft as dew. He did not reply, he 


342 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


trembled as she held him. He saw, almost with terror, 
the candle flare up in the socket. He saw it die. The 
woman held him in the darkness; he felt her cheek 
against his. A sound escaped him as he leapt to his 
feet. 

‘‘ Go,” he said hoarsely, “ go. I must, I must. 
It is the Cause I love.” 

He flung open the door. Her dark flgure passed 
into the night. Once more alone he found that he still 
trembled, he wiped the sweat from his brow. And then, 
awhile, face down upon his bed, he wept, full of the 
indignity he had almost offered to his faith. Almost 
had he given it a rival. Even his triumph could not 
console him: he had been strong enough to resist, and 
many a hero had wavered before achieving the great 
deed, but it did not help him to think so, so fearful 
was he of loving and of being turned from his purpose 
by the fatal charm. 


n 

For now he had to fight his fiercest battle in the days 
that separated him from the removal of Reuben Gal- 
genstein. They were complicated, extraordinary days 
that swiftly changed from the commonplace fur-dressing 
into the luridity of the plot. He had to work steadily 
and silently at Kohn’s ; he could no longer discuss ideas 
or methods with Leitmeritz, or expound them to the 
docile Perekop, for the men who had replaced Warsch 
and Schund were not in sympathy with him. One was 
a boy of seventeen, fresh from Poland and too shy to^ 
speak, while the dyer, who now did Schund’s work, was 


THE BOMB 


343 


a garrulous German, married, thrifty, bent on setting 
up in business for himself and afflicted with incipient 
Imperialism. From the very first day the group had 
remained on their guard where he was concerned, and 
now they hugged more jealously than ever the perilous 
possession that was their secret. 

They did not find it difficult to hide, for it was not 
a thing to talk of lightly. Leitmeritz, though he did 
not regard his cause quite so respectfully as Kalisch, 
tried in those last days to assume a sacerdotal air. He 
unconsciously began the habit of meeting Israel in the 
street some minutes before the opening of the work- 
shop, though he had nothing urgent to say to him, 
except that he had the chemicals, that some formula 
had become clear; but he, in common with the other 
members, felt the need of human society, of meeting 
those with whom he could speak freely. The plot had 
dragged him out of his loneliness of mind, he was 
gentler: as he followed the advice of the German book 
faint regrets stole into his savage soul. 

He did not shrink from the work, but he studied 
the properties of picrates and fulminates without any 
of the old butcher lust ; he grew undefinably refined, his 
voice was kindly, his wrinkles seemed less deep, his at- 
titude became that of a trustee for humanity. 

The quieting influence stole over all of them. There 
was no laughter at Little Goodge Street, there was 
none of the elation which is supposed to spring up in 
the hearts of soldiers when the bugle calls them to 
arms. There was little save grave talk of the value 
of fulmi-cotton, nitroglycerine and nitrobenzene, on 
which Leitmeritz discoursed in learned but low tones. 

“ You must decide on what you want, Kalisch — 
large or small radius of action, depth of thrust or up- 


'SU UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 

ward action. The book tells you; all you need do is 
to choose.” 

But Israel did not trouble himself with details. He 
told Leitmeritz that any bomb would serve his purpose 
provided it were capable of destroying a motor-car or 
a carriage. He did not care who filled it nor who pro- 
cured the explosives ; he had no word of thanks for 
Ekaterina, who bought the chlorate of potassium, stole 
the phosphorus from the home laboratory of a South 
Kensington student; he saw with unconcern Leitmeritz 
making tests of fulmi-cotton and nitroglycerine, which 
he manufactured himself. 

“ See,” said Leitmeritz quietly, as he laid before him 
the dry fulmi-cotton. “ See how it burns.” He 
lighted the stuff ; it burned slowly in parts, quickly in 
others, hut without exploding. “ Ah,” said Leitmeritz, 
sighing, “ not homogeneous, not homogeneous. It is 
the acids, Kalisch ; you cannot get them pure. That 
nitric acid and that vitriol . . . useless, fit for clean- 
ing brass plates, tac! Yet, it burns, and when it is 
packed with the rest ... we shall see.” He smiled, 
with the return of his old blood lust. 

Israel made no comments. This litter of tumblers 
and test-tubes, the retort from which Leitmeritz ob- 
tained distilled water, the little water bottle at the 
bottom of which was drowned the phosphorus, and all 
the compounds, flaky, spongy, gelatinous, with singular 
and complicated names, were hardly real to him. And 
Leitmeritz, who sat owl-like and delighted at his devil- 
ish cooking range, seemed less real than anything he 
made; he was incredible, this new and professional 
Leitmeritz with the acid-stained hands and the kindly 
smile of the informative scientist. Yet the work that 
was being done never left Israel’s thoughts ; he was not 


THE BOMB 


345 


afraid, but he moved in a new, a respectful atmosphere 
in which were emotion and tenderness. The group 
would collect round him and look at him silently ; Ekat- 
erina’s eyes would grow humid; Lydotchka, who could 
not smile since Jonas had died dishonoured, emulated 
the look. Perekop, even, seemed to think he ought to 
show some sympathy, and, to do so, followed Kalisch 
when he walked about the room. And Sonia inquired 
whether he would take his evening meal at Little 
Goodge Street, tenderly suggested tomatoes. Israel 
was for them a child, an invalid some one inspired and 
picked out from among his fellows. He was anointed 
of the Cause. 

But heavier than any solitude there lay upon Israel 
the weight of Karsavina’s love. Every morning she 
arrived before he was awake, sat down on the chair and 
watched him as he lay asleep. She was all a-quiver 
with emotion if he lay upon his back, for then his 
colour was exaggerated by the white bedclothes, his 
hair, pressed up by the pillow, framed and overhung 
his face, cast upon it a glowing shadow. She would 
wait until he woke, breathe quicker when the heavy 
white eyelids rose and the great blue eyes fixed inter- 
rogatively upon the ceiling. And she was thrilled when 
he gave her the first smile of the day, the smile which 
renewed their intimacy, thrilled, too, when he said — 

‘‘ Karsavina, already,” in a voice still thick with 
sleep. Morning and evening they were together, when- 
ever Israel was not idly listening to Leitmeritz’s per- 
petual talk of fulminates and picrates, to Ekaterina 
and the plans she made for him with the hard efficiency 
of the trained terrorist. She wanted every minute of 
his freedom, of those days that dwindled away and 
brought her nearer to the time of peril when she might 


346 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


lose all that life held for her. Interrupted by pauses, 
which for her were not empty, their conversations were 
endless. 

“ It is about time,” said Israel one night, “ or in one 
or two days it will be. What I expected has come 
about: Reuben Galgenstein has been in London three 
days, and already he is a great man. See, here is a 
paper with his picture and the story of the strike, to- 
gether with the opinion of a Harley Street doctor.” 

“ Who, I suppose, says what you prophesied — that 
necrosis is due to the workman’s carelessness ? ” 

‘‘ Exactly. But never mind that, Karsavina, look 
at him.” 

Together they examined, feature by feature, the face 
of Reuben Galgenstein. It was an ordinary, Jewish 
face quite devoid of vigour or cruelty ; the man did not 
look like one who would draw the life-blood of his fel- 
lows. It was a broad, open face, flabby rather than 
bulky. It was the face of a man of fifty, with a high, 
receding forehead from which grew sparse hair; the 
nose was fleshy, the mouth thick and uncertain, and 
the lips protruded under the waxed moustache. Gal- 
genstein’s chin, though, was to them the interesting 
feature: its lines were smothered in fat, it continued 
by a dewlap into the throat; there were small folds of 
flesh upon the low collar. It had no forcefulness. 

‘‘ Israel,” said Karsavina in a whisper, “ that chin 
. . . you can hardly see it, it recedes under the fat 
. . . you remember that Jonas . . .” 

Yes,” said Israel, still looking at the picture, 
Jonas had a chin like that, and he too would have been 
fat at fifty. Poor Jonas, but it was best so, he was not 
strong enough to do our work.” 

Is it any good, Israel? ” asked Karsavina suddenly, 


THE BOMB i347 

this work? After Reuben Galgenstein will come an- 
other, and, if you kill that one, another.” 

I cannot reason any more,” said Israel. With a 
gesture of weariness he laid the picture on the table, 
his face in his hands. 

For a while there was silence in the little room, 
silence hardly disturbed by the rare rattling of some 
cart in the street, the monotonous thud of the old 
printer’s hand-press below. They tried to review the 
situation, those two, to understand it, rather. It 
escaped them, it was too near and too big; it was 
hidden from them though they were part of it, as is 
the movement of an army from the soldier in the ranks. 
They were the sport of currents that were carrying 
them away ; their principles had suddenly become vague, 
tainted with doubts ; they did not know any more 
whether the thing to be done was fine, or merely aimless 
and foolish. And the man, who had not to inflame him 
the woman’s simple passion, tried to gain relief by 
talking of other things. He spoke of his past life, of 
himself as a small boy who kept starvation at bay by 
playing the violin. 

“ I remember so many things,” he said wearily, 
“ many that I guess rather than remember. There 
are so many names of places that I know, and I do not 
know the places; Thorn, Warschau, and Lissa, and 
Gleiwitz ... I must have been there — they come 
up into my mind from far away. I must have followed 
my old grandfather from town to town; there were 
rivers, and in those days I remember no mountains, 
but endless light-brown plains. And then other things 
when I was alone, a great green hill at Cracow, and 
Kassa. ...” 

Karsavina listened without interrupting, moved by 


348 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


the picture she made for herself of this small boy wan- 
dering through Eastern Europe, his violin in his hand, 
his eyes wide open to the wonderful world. She felt 
the heartache of women who love when she heard how 
Szegen had flogged him, how he had starved in the 
markets of New York, for she wanted to have been his 
mother and his sister, now to be his love, to have been 
everything and remain everything to him. 

“ I cannot bear to think you have not always known 
me,” she said ; “ I wish we had been cradled together, 
together played childish games, together learned to 
read, and read all the wonderful things that are writ- 
ten, I wish we had never been apart. And I cannot 
bear that you should have known any woman . . . 
this Augusta you spoke of, she must have loved 
you. ...” 

“ I did not love her,” said Israel. 

“ Never mind, I hate her.” 

And Karsavina, too, told him of her early days, of a 
doll with a blue frock and red-and-white embroidery on 
the cuffs and collar of her bodice; of a student who 
used to smile and take off his flat cap when he saw her 
at her father’s shop-window, tender trifles that made 
them laugh, though they sorrowed a little sentimen- 
tally over the simple, dead past. For the present was 
so complex they hardly dared speak of it. The Cause 
was about to justify itself ; it had thrown out its vast 
net, and already held within it its chosen victim. 
Reuben Galgenstein was in the centre of a group of 
spies; the newspapers which recorded his movements 
made it easy to follow him. He was followed, he was 
watched in turn by Karsavina, by Sonia and by Perekop ; 
the women each took a costly day off to maintain con- 
tact, and Ekaterina, achieving a masterly introduction 


THE BOMB 


349 


through a mutual friend, was even able to shake hands 
with the victim and to draw from him the news that he 
intended to stay a fortnight in town. It was Ekat- 
erina discovered that he would be in London on the 
following Sunday: the Sunday was then chosen, for 
this would enable Kalisch to do his work and, if he 
escaped, to return next day to his ordinary life. 

“ There is nothing like work to guarantee your re- 
spectability,” said Ekaterina. She was not cynical : 
as a Terrorist she could not be cynical, but she had to 
be practical. 

The days travelled, and Israel found himself numbly 
receiving his instructions from Ekaterina. They 
were complete and capable. He was to leave Cleve- 
land Street very early, walk to Hyde Park, go 
behind a thicket and quickly swathe his head and 
chin in surgical bandages, so as to conceal his hair and 
beard. Then he was to rest on a bench, walk like a 
very sick man, attain Piccadilly at five minutes to four 
and wait for Galgenstein’s green motor. He was to 
fling the bomb while Galgenstein told the chauffeur 
where to drive to ; she knew exactly the hour, four 
o’clock. As soon as he had flung the bomb he was 
to run across Piccadilly, enter a side street where there 
was a shop to let, slip into its porch, and then take 
off the bandages, which he was to stow under his coat. 
Ekaterina was perfect in her details ; she even provided 
for speed by making up a set of dummy bandages which 
could be fastened over the head and beard by means of 
a single hook. Kalisch learned to remove them in less 
than three seconds, visited the place, repeated his lesson 
word for word, and then, in his growing numbness, re- 
turned to dreams. 

For now it was Saturday. 


350 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


HI 

Israel and Karsavina were waiting. The man sat 
upon the chair, his chin upon his hands, looking va- 
cantly at the flickering light, the girl upon the bed, 
hands clasped in her lap. They had sat thus for half- 
an-hour without speaking, hardly conscious of flying 
time. There was nothing to do, nothing to say: this 
was the vigil. They had eaten, spoken in desultory 
manner of common things, of the tramways that might 
run along the Tottenham Court Road, of the Imperial- 
ist German at Kohn’s, of anything that was vapid 
enough to smother for a moment their preoccupation. 
They had come to the end of their small-talk. Eleven 
struck at St. Marienkirche. Simultaneously almost 
there was a rap at the door. Karsavina rose, opened 
it for Leitmeritz. The Pole signed to her to close it 
behind him, walked up to the table, undid his coat and 
carefully took from it a rounded object which he laid 
upon the table, while Karsavina lifted the light away. 

For almost a minute they remained looking at the 
thing. It was a cast-iron cylinder about ten inches in 
height; it apparently had a metal base, while the top 
seemed made of a circular piece of steel in which was 
bored a small hole fllled by a steel peg. Its blackness, 
its squat, shell-like air made it sinister; it was sinister, 
too, because there was nothing showy about it, no 
spikes or springs or coloured fuses. It was just a 
little black cylinder weighing about three pounds; it 
was no more impressive than a gingerbeer bottle. At 
last Leitmeritz spoke — 

“ There you are, Israel. It’ll work, tac ; I’m sure it 
will, though you wouldn’t let me try one on a police- 
man.” 


THE BOMB 


351 


Israel smiled at this idea, but said nothing. 

“ Steel and iron all through,” said Leitmeritz 
proudly. “ Half a centimetre thick everywhere. And 
the bottom is soldered with half a centimetre of lead, 
and the top is screwed on. Ah, it’ll need the little mix- 
ture inside to smash that ! ” He laughed, and the 
kindly scientist was gone ; there remained only the 
blood-lusty Leitmeritz of old. “ Yes,” he resumed, ‘‘ a 
nice little mixture. A little nitroglycerine. And a 
little nitrobenzene. And a little fulmi-cotton, so as 
to save jealousy in the laboratory, ha-ha. And a little 
mercuric fulminate. And just before you throw, a 
little sulphuric acid. You have every chance, Israel, 
several detonators : shock is one, fulminate another, and 
sulphuric acid acts as a third. A nice little mixture.” 

Leitmeritz stroked the cylinder as if he loved it. 
Then he once more told the two every detail, explained 
the action of the acid on the chlorate, the liberation of 
oxygen, the generation of heat, its effect on the fulmi- 
nate, and the consequent action on the three nitrous 
compounds. He warned Kalisch against handling the 
cylinder roughly, told him again how to slip in the 
sulphuric acid tube at the last moment, how to cork up 
the cylinder with the steel peg and how to rotate the 
bomb as he threw it, so as to scatter the acid through 
the chlorate. At last Kalisch lost patience. 

“ Yes,” he said harshly, “ I know. I think of 
nothing else.” 

There was silence. Then Kalisch held out his hand. 

“ Good-bye.” 

Leitmeritz took it, held it between both his. For 
some seconds he looked into Kalisch’s eyes, and there 
were tears in his. Then he laughed nervously, and his 
eyes seemed queerly dim and roving. 


S52 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


‘‘ Don’t forget to run to the other side,” he mur- 
mured. 

“ Good-bye, Leitmeritz,” said Israel again in a low, 
serious voice. “ If I do not come back ...” 

“ You will be remembered for ever,” whispered the 
Pole. Then, hurriedly, as if he were ashamed, he put 
both hands upon Kalisch’s shoulders, drew him for- 
wards and kissed him on the cheek. Then he turned 
and ran down the stairs, leaving the two in front of the 
cylinder. 

They stood on either side of the table looking at it, 
Israel as if he did not know what it was for, for his 
glance was dull, not fearful, Karsavina as if it at- 
tracted her. The thing was horrible, it was beautiful 
in its potential strength, and it meant so much. Round 
this little cylinder revolved her hope, her life. It was 
the sword of her beloved as he set out to conquer the 
world. So threatening was it, though, that the heroic 
of it disappeared, that it seemed merely vile; she saw 
it as the trap in which her passion was struggling to 
its death, and she felt so insanely drawn to it that she 
had to knot her hot, moist hands together to avoid 
seizing it. It was as terribly attractive as the ground 
from a great height. And still they watched it, as 
if it were alive and hostile, hardly listening to the 
chimes of the church. Then, very slowly, twelve o’clock 
struck, and the strokes seemed fatal, full of meaning. 
Israel took up a towel, wiped his forehead and his 
hands. Then he spoke hoarsely. 

“ Karsavina. You must go.” 

“ No, no, not yet, not yet.” 

“ Yes.” His voice was hard. ‘‘ Now. If I escape 
you shall see me to-morrow night.” 

“ Let me come with you.” The girl impetuously ran 


THE BOMB 


round the table, seized his left arm, looked up into his 
face. Her features were strained, her brows knitted, 
her mouth half open as if she would cry out. Israel 
did not move. 

“ No,” he said. “ I go alone. None of the others 
are wanted. No more are you. You shall wait here.” 

“ Israel,” said Karsavina suddenly, and her hands 
tightened upon his arm, ‘‘ must you ? ” 

Kalisch looked at her without amazement. His mind 
was dulled. 

“Must you.?” she whispered intensely. “You may 
be caught, killed. And you might ... I love you 
. . . you might stay . . . and you love me . . . 
I know you love me . . . you do.” She threw one 
arm round his neck. 

“ I must,” said Israel, but did not repulse her. 

“No, no . . .” 

“ I must.” 

She knew that his words were final. She struggled 
no more, but now she spoke of her love, she strained him 
to her, she laid her head upon his shoulder. He could 
feel her shake with sobs, and mechanically he clasped 
her with both arms. Then their talk became murmurs, 

“You love me . . .” 

“ I don’t know ...” 

“ Oh, you will come back ...” 

“ Yes, yes,” he whispered. 

“Back to me?” She threw up her head towards 
him. 

“ Yes ... to you.” 

“ To me . . . for ever.” 

“ For ever ...” 

Time passed, they were still locked in each other’s 
arms. Their hearts beat violently, so that the bodies 


354 . 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


of both were full of their beating. Their faces were 
very close ; they could see the minutiae of their features, 
the colours in the pupils of their eyes ; they were tremb- 
ling and racked, their nerves were jarred, and in their 
eyelids was the stinging that promises tears. At last 
Karsavina spoke — 

‘‘Kiss me.” 

Israel hesitated, shivered as for a moment he faced 
the danger of this lure. Then, quite suddenly, secure 
in his strength, he bent down and pressed his lips to 
hers. A long time seemed to pass, and s+ill they held 
each other in their first embrace. As they stood thus, 
close-locked, they had no formulated thoughts, 
they were conscious of nothing save each other, they 
were filled with the first delight of love; they did not 
reason as they kissed. They kissed in triumph, in 
despair, in farewell. Close pressed, brow to brow, with 
hands gripped on shoulders, aware of each other with 
terrible intensity, they clung because they dared not 
loose their hold, because this was, and they knew it, 
the last as well as the first embrace. They held each 
other in passion and in defiance, victors awhile of fate 
and rebels against the coming death. As suddenly as 
they had clasped they parted. Israel drew back, 
covered his eyes with both hands. 

“ Good-bye,” he murmured. 

When he looked up again he was alone. Upon the 
table stood the symbol of his duty, the little black 
cylinder . . . half a centimetre thick, and full of its 
nice little mixture, tac, its nice little mixture. . , . 


THE BOMB 


355 


IV 

As four o’clock struck the man with the bandaged 
head started forward a step, seemed to gather a little 
strength to be able to stand away from the pillar-box 
against which he had been leaning. He looked to the 
right and left as if he were a beggar and fearful, but 
the Sunday repose of Piccadilly was undisturbed, no 
policeman could be seen. A few yards away stood a 
green motor-car, watched by a green-liveried chauffeur. 

A short man of about fifty came out of the house. 
He looked up and down the street, at the man with the 
bandaged head. He hesitated, then fumbled in his 
pocket, stepped up to the injured man and put a coin 
into his hand, while, as he did so, a kindly smile spread 
over his flabby face. 

The short man turned, spoke to his chauffeur. The 
man with the bandages took something that seemed 
heavy from under his coat, slipped some object into it, 
seemed to turn a screw. Suddenly he appeared im- 
mensely tall, for he stood with one arm aloft, as if 
about to throw the thing at the couple who turned their 
backs towards him. But he did not throw. He desper- 
ately waved his other arm at a hatless woman with heavy, 
light coils of hair, who had appeared at the corner of 
the side-street. The woman disappeared as the man 
swung the thing, but it did not leave his hand ; he looked 
like an automaton as he swung; he seemed no longer 
to know whether he would throw it; his eyes, in that 
second of time, roved as if distracted, by the woman 
perhaps. 

The thing left his hand and as his fingers released 
it a dull roar, such as is made by a roof that clashes 
through a burning house, filled the street. The two 


356 


UNTIL THE DAY BREAK 


men near the motor-car were sitting on the ground, 
dazed but unhurt. The man who had thrown the thing 
lay on his back; his bandages had slipped as he fell, 
revealing a mass of red curls ; blood was forming a 
pool on the pavement as it streamed from the shoulder 
where his right arm had been, and from his side, torn 
open to the waist. 

The men near the motor-car, and a few people who 
stood in petrified attitudes on the other side of the 
road, saw a woman run past the motor-car, throw her- 
self upon the body, clasp it to her, lift and kiss its face. 
They heard her scream — 

“ Israel, Israel ! ” 

They heard the crack of the revolver when she shot 
herself through the palate. They could not, later, 
free her body from the man’s, separate the faces that 
were stained with their mingled blood. 


THE END 




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